The Legend Santa claus

 

    Santa Claus (also known simply as Santa, or as Saint Nicholas, Saint Nick, Father Christmas or Kris Kringle) is a legendary originating in Western Christian culture who is said to bring gifts during the late evening and overnight hours on Christmas Eve. Christmas elves are said to make the gifts in Santa's workshop, while flying reindeer pull his sleigh through the air.

The popular conception of Santa Claus originates from folklore traditions surrounding the 4th-century Christian bishop Saint Nicholas, the patron saint of children. Saint Nicholas became renowned for his reported generosity and secret gift-giving. The image of Santa Claus shares similarities with the English figure of Father Christmas, and they are both now popularly regarded as the same person.

Santa is generally depicted as a portly, jolly, white-bearded man, often with glasses, wearing a red coat with white fur collar and cuffs, white-fur-cuffed red trousers, a red hat trimmed with white fur, a black leather belt and boots, carrying a bag full of gifts for children. He is popularly associated with a deep, hearty laugh, frequently rendered in Christmas literature as "ho, ho, ho!"

This image originated in the United States during the 19th century, after Dutch settlers brought the legend of Sinterklaas ("Saint Nicholas") to 17th-century New Amsterdam (present-day New York City). The 1823 American poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas", written by an anonymous author, recounts Saint Nicholas arriving at the author's home on Christmas Eve in a sleigh pulled by flying reindeer. The poem laid the foundation for modern depictions of Santa Claus, strengthening the association between Santa Claus and Christmas. Over time, this connection has been maintained and reinforced through song, radio, television, children's books, family Christmas traditions, films, and advertising

Saint Nicholas

Saint Nicholas was a 4th-century Greek Christian bishop of Myra (now Demre) in the region of Lycia in the Roman Empire, today in Turkey. Nicholas was known for his generous gifts to the poor, in particular presenting the three impoverished daughters of a pious Christian with dowries so that they would not have to become prostitutes. He was very religious from an early age and devoted his life entirely to Christianity. In continental Europe (more precisely the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, the Czech Republic and Germany), he is usually portrayed as a bearded bishop in canonical robes.[citation needed]

In 1087, while the Greek Christian inhabitants of Myra were subjugated by the newly arrived Muslim Seljuq dynasty, and soon after their Greek Orthodox church had been declared to be in schism by the Catholic Church (AD 1054), a group of merchants from the Italian city of Bari removed the major bones of Nicholas's skeleton from his sarcophagus in the Greek church in Myra. Over the objection of the monks of Myra the sailors took the bones of Saint Nicholas to Bari, where they are now enshrined in the Basilica di San Nicola. Sailors from Bari collected just half of Nicholas's skeleton, leaving all the minor fragments in the church sarcophagus. These were later taken by Venetian sailors during the First Crusade and placed in Venice, where a church dedicated to Saint Nicholas, the patron of sailors, was built on the San Nicolò al Lido. Saint Nicholas's vandalised sarcophagus can still be seen in the St. Nicholas Church in Myra. This tradition was confirmed in two important scientific investigations of the relics in Bari and Venice, which revealed that the relics in the two Italian cities belong to the same skeleton. Saint Nicholas was later claimed as a patron saint of many diverse groups, from archers, sailors, and children to pawnbrokers. He is also the patron saint of both Amsterdam and Moscow.

During the Middle Ages, often on the evening before his name day of 6 December, children were bestowed gifts in his honour. This date was earlier than the original day of gifts for the children, which moved in the course of the Reformation and its opposition to the veneration of saints in many countries on 24 and 25 December. The custom of gifting to children at Christmas was propagated by Martin Luther as an alternative to the previous very popular gift custom attention on Saint Nicholas, to focus the interest of the children to Christ instead of the veneration of saints. Luther first suggested the Christkind as the bringer of gifts. But Nicholas remained popular as gifts bearer for the people

History

Origins

Early representations of the gift-giver from Church history and folklore, especially Saint Nicholas, merged with the English character Father Christmas to create the mythical character known to the rest of the English-speaking world as "Santa Claus" (a phonetic derivation of "Sinterklaas" in Dutch).

In the English and later British colonies of North America, and later in the United States, British and Dutch versions of the gift-giver merged further. For example, in Washington Irving's History of New York (1809), Sinterklaas was Anglicised into "Santa Claus" (a name first used in the U.S. press in 1773) but lost his bishop's apparel, and was at first pictured as a thick-bellied Dutch sailor with a pipe in a green winter coat. Irving's book was a parody of the Dutch culture of New York, and much of this portrait is his joking invention. Irving's interpretation of Santa Claus was part of a broader movement to tone down the increasingly wild Christmas celebrations of the era, which included aggressive home invasions under the guise of wassailing, substantial premarital sex (leading to shotgun weddings in areas where the Puritans, waning in power and firmly opposed to Christmas, still held some influence) and public displays of sexual deviancy; the celebrations of the era were derided by both upper-class merchants and Christian purists.

19th century

Illustration to verse 1 of "Old Santeclaus with Much Delight"

Francis Pharcellus Church, author of the famous 1897 The Sun editorial which, responding to a letter from eight-year old Virginia O'Hanlon, contains the line "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus"

In 1821 the book A New-year's present, to the little ones from five to twelve was published in New York. It contained "Old Santeclaus with Much Delight", an anonymous poem describing Santeclaus on a reindeer sleigh, bringing rewards to children. Some modern ideas of Santa Claus seemingly became canon after the anonymous publication of the poem A Visit From St. Nicholas (better known today as The Night Before Christmas) in the Troy, New York Sentinel on 23 December 1823; Clement Clarke Moore later claimed authorship, though others have argued that the author was Henry Livingston Jr., although he had never claimed authorship of the piece and died nine years before Moore revealed himself as the author. Saint Nicholas is described as being "chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf" with "a little round belly", that "shook when he laughed like a bowlful of jelly", in spite of which the "miniature sleigh" and "tiny reindeer" still indicate that he is physically diminutive. The reindeer were also named: Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Dunder and Blixem (Dunder and Blixem came from the old Dutch words for thunder and lightning, which were later changed to the more German sounding Donner and Blitzen).

By 1845 "Kris Kringle" (from "Christkindl(e)", German for "Christ-child") was a common variant of Santa in parts of the United States. A magazine article from 1853, describing American Christmas customs to British readers, refers to children hanging up their stockings on Christmas Eve for "a fabulous personage" whose name varies: in Pennsylvania he is usually called "Krishkinkle", but in New York he is "St. Nicholas" or "Santa Claus". The author quotes Moore's poem in its entirety, saying that its descriptions apply to Krishkinkle too.

As the years passed, Santa Claus evolved into a large, heavyset person. One of the first artists to define the modern image of the modern image of Santa Claus was Thomas Nast, a German-born American cartoonist of the 19th century who immortalised Santa Claus with an illustration for the 3 January 1863 issue of Harper's Weekly in which Santa was dressed in an American flag, and had a puppet with the name "Jeff" written on it, reflecting its American Civil War context. Nast was inspired by the Belsnickel, part of the folklore in southwestern Germany, where he was born.[34] In this drawing, Santa is also in a sleigh pulled by reindeers.

The story that Santa Claus lives at the North Pole may also have been a Nast creation. His Christmas image in the Harper's issue dated 29 December 1866 was a collage of engravings titled Santa Claus and His Works, which included the caption "Santa Claussville, N.P." A colour collection of Nast's pictures, published in 1869, had a poem also titled "Santa Claus and His Works" by George P. Webster, who wrote that Santa Claus's home was "near the North Pole, in the ice and snow". The tale had become well known by the 1870s. A boy from Colorado writing to the children's magazine The Nursery in late 1874 said, "If we did not live so very far from the North Pole, I should ask Santa Claus to bring me a donkey."

The idea of a wife for Santa Claus may have been the creation of American authors, beginning in the mid-19th century. In 1889, the poet Katharine Lee Bates popularised Mrs Claus in the poem "Goody Santa Claus on a Sleigh Ride". "Is There a Santa Claus?" is the title of an iconic editorial by Francis Pharcellus Church in the 21 September 1897 edition of The New York Sun that became the most reprinted in the US and included the famous reply, "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus"

                                            Source of post : wikipedia.org