The Evolution of Santa Claus: How St. Nicholas Became a Christmas Icon (#98)

Everyone loves presents, and honestly, you have to admit it’s one of the most exciting parts about Christmas, no matter how old you are. I love not just receiving presents, but giving them as well because I’m excited to see people’s reactions. But nothing is more exciting than when you’re a child, and the magic of Santa Claus is alive.

But who is this fat fella who brings children presents?! Today I’m going to be looking at the evolution of Santa Claus (I love how I make him sound like a separate species or a Pokemon). I’ll talk a little bit about the history of St Nicholas, and how he became what we know today as the man who brings children all over the world presents on Christmas Eve.

Santa has several aliases, depending on the part of the world you live in. The English call him Father Christmas, the French know him as Père Noël, and Kris Kringle seems to be a version of Christkind, a sprite-like child, usually depicted with blond hair and angelic wings, who is the traditional Christmas gift-bringer in Austria, Switzerland, southern and western Germany, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, and many other places around the world.

In the Netherlands, he arrives in town on a steamboat or horse from Spain. The Dutch call him Sinterklaas – which has come into American English as ‘Santa Claus’ – short for Sint Nicolaas or St. Nicholas.

St. Nicholas and Santa Claus are historically the same guy. But unlike the jolly figure who flies on a reindeer-led sleigh from the North Pole, the saint came originally from the Mediterranean coast.

Who was St Nicholas?

St Nicholas was a Christian bishop who helped the needy. After his death, the legend of his gift-giving grew. Saint Nicholas transformed into the legendary character called Santa Claus, who brings Christmas presents to children around the world.

St Nicholas was born around the year 260 AD in Patara, Lycia, on the southwest coast of present-day Turkey. He lost both of his parents when he was young and reportedly used his inheritance to help the poor and sick. At the time, Christianity was illegal under the Roman empire — so St Nicholas, who studied to be a priest, spent time in prison for his religious beliefs. However, after Emperor Constantine legalized Christianity, St Nicholas later served as bishop of Myra, a city that is now called Demre. 

Obviously, because this guy lived so long ago, it’s hard to know what stories about him are true, but there are many legends about him. The writer of an article I read (it’ll be linked in the notes for this episode) said, “As a historian of religions who has written books about ancient saints, I caution against reading accounts of saints’ lives as factual history. However, the earliest stories of St. Nicholas seem to correlate with histories and church documents of the period.”

During his lifetime, Nicholas became famous for defending his people against imperial taxes and other forms of oppression. According to the earliest document about Nicholas from the fifth century, he prevented three loyal generals from unjust execution for treason. A ninth-century Greek legend claims he revived three scholars who had been murdered and stashed in a pickling tub.

One of the most famous stories about St Nicholas tells how the custom of hanging up stockings to put presents in first started! The story goes like this:

There was a poor man who had three daughters. The man was so poor that he did not have enough money for a dowry, so his daughters couldn't get married. (A dowry is a sum of money paid to the groom by the bride's parents on the wedding day. This still happens in some countries, even today.) One night, Nicholas secretly dropped a bag of gold down the chimney and into the house (this meant that the oldest daughter was then able to be married). The bag fell into a stocking that had been hung by the fire to dry. This was repeated later with the second daughter. Finally, determined to discover the person who had given him the money, the father secretly hid by the fire every evening until he caught Nicholas dropping in a bag of gold. Nicholas begged the man to not tell anyone what he had done, because he did not want to bring attention to himself. But soon the news got out and when anyone received a secret gift, it was thought that maybe it was from Nicholas.

Several sources state St Nicholas is believed to have died on December 6, 343. After his death, people believed that Nicholas continued to work miracles. His burial place, below the floor of his church in Myra, became a popular destination for pilgrims who begged Nicholas to relay their messages to God.

Proof that Nicholas was listening, they believed, was in the “manna” – the holy oil or water – that dripped from the tomb. Pilgrims took this manna home in little bottles or used rags to soak up the moisture that dripped from the saint’s tomb, which was a common pilgrimage practice at Christian shrines.

Visitors to Myra spread Nicholas’ fame along sea routes across the Mediterranean. From there, word passed to the Latin West, and to Russia. Soon, pilgrims from all over were journeying to Myra to seek the gifts of protection and healing from St Nicholas.

In the 11th century, however, there was a bit of disruption to the peace when Italians stole the body of St Nicholas from his tomb. Basically, at this time, this area of now-Turkey was beginning to be governed by Muslim leaders, and Christians feared that St Nicholas’s tomb would be disregarded or destroyed — so a crew of Italian Christians decided to take action.

In 1087, three ships set out from Bari, on Italy’s southeast coast, bound for Antioch. According to a monk named Nicephorus their mission was to steal St. Nicholas’ body. In Antioch they heard a rumor that the Venetians too were planning a similar heist. The Barian sailors headed for Myra in search of St. Nicholas’ church. Custodians there became suspicious when the sailors asked to see the saint’s body.

The Barians claimed that the pope had a vision directing him to fetch Nicholas to Italy. When the priests refused, they offered gold, but the offer was tossed aside. Instead of giving up, the Barians caught and bound the priests. Suddenly, a vial of manna fell to the pavement and broke. It seemed that St. Nicholas spoke to them: “It is my will that I leave here with you.”

So, the Barians broke through the marble floor with picks and hammers. They found the bones swimming in a small sea of manna. They carefully wrapped the relics in a silk case and fled to their ship, chased by outraged priests and a howling crowd of citizens demanding that they “give back the father who has by his protection kept us safe from visible foes.”

But the crew made it back to the harbour in Italy where the townsfolk and clergy sang joyous hymns to greet the saint. A new church was built for Nicholas in the court of the governor of Bari. The Barians believed that manna continued to ooze from Nicholas’ coffin, and this belief still exists today.

St Nicholas was a patron saint of sailors, so Spanish sailors and explorers carried stories of St Nicholas wherever they went: Mexico, the Caribbean, Florida and other ports around the world.

I have a quick tangent, actually, about him being the patron saint of sailors. One story tells of him helping some sailors that were caught in a bad storm off the coast of Turkey. The storm was raging around them and all the men were terrified that their ship would sink beneath the huge waves, so they prayed to St. Nicholas to help them. Suddenly, standing on the deck before them, he ordered the sea to be calm, the storm died away, and they were able to sail their ship safely to port.

In 1066, before he set sail to England, William the Conqueror apparently prayed to St. Nicholas, asking that his conquest would go well. Today, on St. Nicholas’s feast day (6th December), the sailors of Bari still carry his statue from the Cathedral out to sea, so that he can bless the waters and so give them safe voyages throughout the year.

But yes, back to his story spreading throughout the world. As I said, because of the Spanish sailors, the word of St Nicholas now spread to ports around the world. Even the Dutch, who rebelled against Catholic Spain, somehow maintained their devotion to Sinterklass. In other parts of Europe, St. Nicholas lost his traditional feast day of December 6th, but he was instead linked to the gift-giving tradition of another December feast day: Christmas.

But as I said earlier, it can be difficult to know how true parts of this story are because they happened so long ago, so all we have to go on today is accounts from the time. In the 1950s, Italian scientists examined the bones enshrined in the Basilica di San Nicola, the new tomb that was built in Italy, seeking evidence of authenticity.

They found the skull and incomplete skeleton of a man, dating to around the fourth century. More recent technology has allowed experts to use the bones to reconstruct Nicholas’ face – he looks like an old Greek man with a broad, worn face. He doesn’t have the rosy cheeks and Anglo-Germanic features of modern Christmas decorations, but like the Santa Claus we often see on greeting cards, he was probably bald.

Turkish archaeologists now claim that the Italians stole the wrong body and that Nicholas’ remains never left Demre. They have discovered another sarcophagus dating to the fourth century in the same church, which they claim contains St Nicholas. 

Alternatively, some historians have suggested that the story of Nicholas’ move to Italy is a fictional story purposely created to advertise a new pilgrimage center in the 11th century. Although relic theft was common in the Middle Ages, grave-robbers often made mistakes or lied about the authenticity and source of their bones. Nothing in the shrine at Bari proves that the bones inside belong to the fourth-century Bishop Nicholas.

Modern Santa Claus

But even so, over the years, St Nicholas has inspired many stories of joy and gift giving, and stories of his miracles and work for the poor spread to other parts of the world. He was a popular saint in Europe until the time of the Reformation in the 1500s, a religious movement that led to the creation of Protestantism, which turned away from the practice of honoring saints. Saint Nicholas, however, remained an important figure particularly in Holland.

The Dutch continued to celebrate the feast day of St Nicholas — in Dutch, Sint Nikolaas or Sinterklaas — on December 6th. As I think Ellie talked about in her last episode about European Christmas traditions, it was a common practice for children to put their shoes on the hearth – these days near the central heating duct – hoping that Sinterklass would fill them with sweets and gifts. Dutch immigrants brought the legend of St Nicholas to America in the 1700s.

St Nicholas went through many transformations in America: Sinterklaas became Santa Claus, and instead of giving gifts on December 6, he became a part of the Christmas holiday. In the 1820 poem "An Account of a Visit from Saint Nicholas" by Clement Clarke Moore, he is described as a jolly, heavy man who comes down the chimney to leave presents for deserving children and drives a sleigh pulled by flying reindeer. The cartoonist Thomas Nast added to the St Nicholas legend with an 1881 drawing of Santa wearing a red suit with white fur trim. Once a kind, charitable bishop, St Nicholas had become the Santa Claus we know today.

In 1823 the famous poem 'A Visit from St. Nicholas' or 'T'was the Night before Christmas', was published. Clement Clarke Moore later claimed that he had written it for his children. (Some scholars now believe that it was actually written by Henry Livingston, Jr., who was a distant relative of Dr Moore's wife. I actually talked about this in depth in one of our Christmas episodes last year - episode 47, Christmas Mysteries.) In the poem, St. Nicholas is described "He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf" and as coming with "a miniature sleigh and eight tiny reindeer". This was the first time we found out the names of the reindeer. They became really well known in the song 'Rudolph the Red nosed Reindeer', written in 1949.

Today, some people say that Santa lives at the North Pole. In Finland, they say that he lives in Lapland. But there’s one thing everyone agrees on, and that’s that he travels through the sky on his sleigh pulled by reindeer, and he comes into houses down the chimney at night and places presents for the children in stockings, in front of the Christmas tree, or by the fireplace.

St. Nicholas putting the bag of gold into a stocking is probably where the custom of having a tangerine or satsuma at the bottom of your Christmas stocking came from. If people couldn't afford gold, golden fruit was a good replacement.

Santa & Coca-Cola

There's a Christmas Urban Legend that says that Santa's red suit was designed by Coca-Cola and that they might even 'own' Santa. This is definitely not true! Long before Coke had been invented, St Nicholas wore his Bishop's red robes. During Victorian times, he wore a range of colors (red, green, blue and brown fur) but red was most common.

In January 1863, the magazine Harper's Weekly published the first illustration of St Nicholas by Thomas Nast, as I mentioned earlier. In this illustration, he was wearing a US 'Stars and Stripes' outfit. Over the next 20 years, Thomas Nast continued to draw Santa every Christmas and his works became very popular.

On January 1st 1881, Harper's Weekly published Nast's most famous image of Santa, complete with a big red belly, an arm full of toys and smoking a pipe. More artists began drawing Santa in his red and white costume from 1900 to 1930.

Santa was first used in Coke adverts in 1931. They took the idea of Nast's illustrations of Santa but made him even more jolly, replacing the pipe with a glass of Coke. Coke has continued to use Santa in their adverts since then. In 1995 they also introduced the 'Coca-Cola Christmas truck' in the 'Holidays are coming' TV adverts, which for a lot of people, seeing that advert is the sign that Christmas has officially begun.

So if you didn’t know the history of Santa Claus before, now you know! If you have children who are starting to ask you about him, now you can tell them some of the stories of who St Nicholas really was.