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Because I love Christmas
My Christmas Baby
Frugal Articles
Recycle Those Old Christmas Decorations
Articles published elsewhere
Funky, Free and Frugal Christmas Decorations
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Origins of Santa ClausHow did kind Saint Nicholas become a jolly old elf?by Pat Veretto Where is Santa Claus from? Ask that and most people, adults and kids alike, will answer "North Pole" - and they're right. Kind of, anyway. Santa Claus really came from... ready now? Turkey. His name was Nicholas, an only child who became an orphan when both parents died of the plague. Nicholas inherited wealth but had no guardian, so he went to live in a monastery. Or... his wealthy parents realized that Nicholas, at a very young age, was special to God and sent him to grow up and be trained in a monastery. Regardless, he was supposedly a remarkably talented young man and became a priest at seventeen years old. Some say that he was the Bishop of Myra while still quite young. Oral tradition has it that Nicholas was imprisoned by the anti - Christian Roman Emperor Diocletian and released later by Emperor Constantine. He attended the first council in Nicaea in 325, called by Emperor Constantine, where the Nicene Creed was established. Legend and/or history says that Nicholas secretly gave away his wealth to needy children and families. His heart was as great as his wealth as he quietly slipped close enough to their houses so he could toss bags of gold through darkened windows or down chimneys after the fire was out for the evening. Other families who went to bed hungry rose to find money enough for food and celebration, perhaps even enough to buy something special for each family member. How many prayers were answered through this kind man will never be known. It's no wonder that the Catholic church determined him to be a saint. It was less than a hundred years after his death that he became Saint Nicholas. One very old account tells that he gave gifts of money to a suddenly poor family so that the daughters would have a dowry and could be married instead of going into prostitution or as one account states, sold into slavery. Another tells of a sea miraculously calmed by the prayers of Saint Nicholass. Still other stories tell of Saint Nicholas defending those who had been falsely accused and returning kidnapped children to their homes. No, there's no official record of any of this. With our penchant for "proof" - written words instead of spoken, we call the whole thing legend, tradition, or myth, but can a myth such as Saint Nicholas be perpetuated internationally and historically without some basis in truth? Is a story less believable because it wasn't written down in a time when most people couldn't read or write? A man or myth of many names, Saint Nicholas is Santa Claus to some, Father Christmas to some and Father Noel to others. Change the name if you will, but the magic and the myth - or the truth - lives on. It was a long and convoluted road that changed Saint Nicholas into Father Christmas or Papa Noel or Kris Kringle, or Santa Claus, but they are one and the same. As the story spread, nations and cultures added their own traditions to the story so that now it's hard to tell where the original stops and the others begin.
Whatever and whoever Saint Nicholas is or was, he is the symbol of the Christmas spirit and there's no question or myth about that.
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