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From Saint Nicholas To Santa Claus: The Changing Face Of An Enduring Icon
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| Merry Old Santa Claus. Thomas Nast's 1881 illustration for Harper's Weekly is the first portrait we have of Santa Claus as we would recognize him today. Gone is his bishop's cloak, and he's not even wearing a pointy red hat. In fact, it looks like Santa has been caught in his long underwear! |
Smart About Art
By EMILY RICE, For The Bulletin
This Sunday, December 6 is the feast day of Saint Nicholas, most commonly celebrated in our country by children putting out their shoes on the night of the fifth, to find candy, coins or other small treats in and around them the following morning. Nicholas is remembered as the patron saint of sailors, fishermen, merchants, the falsely accused, repentant thieves, pharmacists, archers, pawn brokers, and especially children.
While some decry the overshadowing of St. Nicholas Day by the Saint’s role as Santa Claus in the popular celebration of Christmas, the transformation from early Christian saint to jolly old elf mirrors changes in American society.
The Historical Saint Nicholas
The historical Saint Nicholas of Myrna was a fourth century bishop in what is now Turkey. Nicholas had the good fortune to be born to wealthy parents, and after their deaths he became famous for using his inheritance to help the poor. One legend tells of Nicholas taking pity on a family whose father could not afford dowry money for his three daughters to wed. Nicholas visited their house in secret, and tossed a bag of gold for each girl through the window.
These three bags of gold have become one of the enduring symbols of the Saint’s charity, represented by both the oranges commonly included in Christmas or St. Nicholas Day celebrations, and the three gold balls which advertise pawn shops.
The historical Saint Nicholas is represented with a full, short white beard, and wearing the red cape of a bishop over white priestly robes. He carries a crosier, or elaborate shepherd’s crook, and wears a red bishop’s mitre, or pointed hat. In Eastern Orthodox iconography, he is often shown holding a book of the Gospels, with Jesus Christ over one shoulder and Theotokos, the Greek name for Mary, Mother of Jesus, over the other.
The appeal of this kind and generous saint is such that he and his story have been celebrated and reinterpreted by generations of Christian cultures all over the globe.
New Amsterdam’s Sinterklaas
Our own modern day Santa Claus, whose defining traits emerged in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century, is certainly the most culturally powerful manifestation of St. Nicholas. Our Santa’s most specific lineage is through the Dutch Sinterklaas celebrated by colonial era inhabitants of New Amsterdam, which later became New York City. Sinterklass retains the red bishop’s robe and hat, but the book he carries tells whether each child has been naughty or nice over the past year. He visits children on the day or the eve of St. Nicholas Day, and traditionally rewards or punishes children depending on their behavior. Washington Irving wrote about Sinterklaas in his 1809 satire of Dutch New York, Knickerbocker History.
The evolution of this kind but stern saint into Santa Claus can be traced through “The Children’s Friend”, an 1821 poem first published anonymously but now attributed to Clement C. Moore. This version of the story has Santeclaus delivering presents on Christmas Eve in a sleigh drawn by reindeer. Here, however, he is still described as the “steady friend of virtuous youth”, and the poem closes with the warning that Santeclaus sometimes leaves “a long, black, birchen rod, Such as the dread command of God Directs a Parent’s hand to use when virtue’s path his sons refuse.” You better watch out, kids, Santa Claus is coming to town!
A Right Jolly Old Elf
Of course, Moore is better remembered for another Christmas poem, “A Visit from St. Nicholas”, also known from its opening line as “The Night Before Christmas”. Here at last we meet Santa Claus, for although he is still referred to as St. Nick, his twinking eyes and merry dimples “soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread”; this Santa fills all the stockings, with nary a birch branch or lump of coal in sight.
The first publication of “A Visit from St. Nicholas” in a small town New York newspaper was also anonymous, but tradition holds that Moore composed it for his own children on a sleigh ride home from Greenwich Village to Chelsea in what is now New York City in 1822.
In his fun and fancy, the jolly old elf described in “A Visit” is a dramatic departure from previous characterizations of St. Nicholas. In fact, the whole tone of the poem is such a dramatic departure from everything else written by Clement Moore that his authorship has now been called into question. For years Moore himself refused to acknowledge authorship of the poem, dismissing it as “a mere trifle”, and only reluctantly included it in an 1844 volume of his collected works.
A Literary Mystery
Professor Don Foster who “works the literature beat at Vassar College” has made a name for himself in the emerging field of text analysis. Foster has worked with law enforcement on several high profile criminal cases, and he gained notoriety by identifying journalist Joe Klein as the mystery author of the political novel Primary Colors. A substantial body of circumstantial evidence has convinced Foster that Moore’s claim on “A Visit from St. Nicholas” is a false one.
Foster’s new book, Author Unknown, promotes the case of another gentleman poet contemporary of Moore’s, Henry Livingston Jr. of Poughkeepsie, NY. No original manuscript of the famous poem has ever surfaced, and Livingston died before Moore stepped forward to take credit for it. However, Livingston’s family has always maintained his authorship.
Most generally, the Dutch culture of New York from which St. Nick clearly emerged was essentially foreign to Moore, who spoke some German but no Dutch. However, it was the proud heritage of Henry Livingston. St. Nick’s big belly girded with a wide belt, and his big black boots are both elements caricatured in Irving’s Knickerbocker History, and so would have been accessible to any writer of those times. Two of his reindeer, however, carried the Dutch names “Dunder” and “Blixem” for thunder and lightning. A printer’s error in an early edition translated these to their German equivalents “Donder and Blitzen”, and Moore repeated the mistake in a hand written copy he made later in life.
In addition to the marked absence of moral castigations which define Moore’s other poems for children, “A Visit from St. Nicholas” romanticizes St. Nick’s pipe, with its “smoke that encircled his head like a wreath.” Episcopal minister Moore elsewhere denounced tobacco as “opium’s treacherous aid.”
Other of Livingston’s linguistic quirks which appear in the original poem are the wish for a “Happy” as opposed to a “Merry” Christmas, and his liberal use of exclamation points.
The poem quickly became wildly popular, and has remained so ever since. Thus the authorship of this “trifle” carries disproportionate significance because “A Visit from St. Nicholas” has come to define Americans’ understanding of who Santa Claus really is.
Merry Old Santa
In 1862 political cartoonist Thomas Nast contributed a visual element to further popularize Santa’s story. His cover illustration for Harper’s Weekly’s Christmas edition was titled “Santa Claus in Camp”, and showed St. Nicholas visiting with dispirited Union soldiers. The image was so enthusiastically received that Nast revisited the theme in 1881, creating the first portrait of the glad, portly figure we all recognize as Santa Claus. “Merry Old Santa” is shown here, smoking his pipe and carrying armloads of toys. His eyes twinkle out at us from under a wreath of holly on his head, and his whole demeanor radiates Christmas joy.
There is no question that Nast’s drawings and Moore’s (or Livingston’s) poem have great artistic merit, but the lasting appeal of the character they draw can also be attributed to changes in American society taking place at the same time. As the Industrial Revolution came into full force, the general population acquired unprecedented access to material goods of all sorts. This was the birth of our modern consumer culture. At the same time, smaller families and greater social mobility contributed to greater parental anxiety and the modern cult of childhood, which in one form or another is still with us today.
It may be that Santa Claus became the vehicle for the commercialization of Christmas, and especially for the custom of giving presents to children, precisely because the story of St. Nicholas stands apart from the religious celebration of Christ’s Nativity. After all, The Epiphany or Three Kings’ Day on January 6 is still celebrated by many Catholic Christians as the appropriate day for exchanging Christmas gifts. At the same time, children’s assiduous efforts to stay off Santa’s naughty list might fairly be considered a juvenile counterpoint to the Advent admonition for adult Christians to prepare our hearts for Christ’s second coming even as we make plans to celebrate His birth.
While the feast day of such an exalted individual as St. Nicholas is still worthy of celebration, the Saint’s modern manifestation as Santa Claus has become part and parcel of America’s celebration of Christmas. Our appreciation of his generous good humor is a natural product of American popular culture, so much so that we can truly say, we were made for each other.
While some decry the overshadowing of St. Nicholas Day by the Saint’s role as Santa Claus in the popular celebration of Christmas, the transformation from early Christian saint to jolly old elf mirrors changes in American society.
The Historical Saint Nicholas
The historical Saint Nicholas of Myrna was a fourth century bishop in what is now Turkey. Nicholas had the good fortune to be born to wealthy parents, and after their deaths he became famous for using his inheritance to help the poor. One legend tells of Nicholas taking pity on a family whose father could not afford dowry money for his three daughters to wed. Nicholas visited their house in secret, and tossed a bag of gold for each girl through the window.
These three bags of gold have become one of the enduring symbols of the Saint’s charity, represented by both the oranges commonly included in Christmas or St. Nicholas Day celebrations, and the three gold balls which advertise pawn shops.
The historical Saint Nicholas is represented with a full, short white beard, and wearing the red cape of a bishop over white priestly robes. He carries a crosier, or elaborate shepherd’s crook, and wears a red bishop’s mitre, or pointed hat. In Eastern Orthodox iconography, he is often shown holding a book of the Gospels, with Jesus Christ over one shoulder and Theotokos, the Greek name for Mary, Mother of Jesus, over the other.
The appeal of this kind and generous saint is such that he and his story have been celebrated and reinterpreted by generations of Christian cultures all over the globe.
New Amsterdam’s Sinterklaas
Our own modern day Santa Claus, whose defining traits emerged in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century, is certainly the most culturally powerful manifestation of St. Nicholas. Our Santa’s most specific lineage is through the Dutch Sinterklaas celebrated by colonial era inhabitants of New Amsterdam, which later became New York City. Sinterklass retains the red bishop’s robe and hat, but the book he carries tells whether each child has been naughty or nice over the past year. He visits children on the day or the eve of St. Nicholas Day, and traditionally rewards or punishes children depending on their behavior. Washington Irving wrote about Sinterklaas in his 1809 satire of Dutch New York, Knickerbocker History.
The evolution of this kind but stern saint into Santa Claus can be traced through “The Children’s Friend”, an 1821 poem first published anonymously but now attributed to Clement C. Moore. This version of the story has Santeclaus delivering presents on Christmas Eve in a sleigh drawn by reindeer. Here, however, he is still described as the “steady friend of virtuous youth”, and the poem closes with the warning that Santeclaus sometimes leaves “a long, black, birchen rod, Such as the dread command of God Directs a Parent’s hand to use when virtue’s path his sons refuse.” You better watch out, kids, Santa Claus is coming to town!
A Right Jolly Old Elf
Of course, Moore is better remembered for another Christmas poem, “A Visit from St. Nicholas”, also known from its opening line as “The Night Before Christmas”. Here at last we meet Santa Claus, for although he is still referred to as St. Nick, his twinking eyes and merry dimples “soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread”; this Santa fills all the stockings, with nary a birch branch or lump of coal in sight.
The first publication of “A Visit from St. Nicholas” in a small town New York newspaper was also anonymous, but tradition holds that Moore composed it for his own children on a sleigh ride home from Greenwich Village to Chelsea in what is now New York City in 1822.
In his fun and fancy, the jolly old elf described in “A Visit” is a dramatic departure from previous characterizations of St. Nicholas. In fact, the whole tone of the poem is such a dramatic departure from everything else written by Clement Moore that his authorship has now been called into question. For years Moore himself refused to acknowledge authorship of the poem, dismissing it as “a mere trifle”, and only reluctantly included it in an 1844 volume of his collected works.
A Literary Mystery
Professor Don Foster who “works the literature beat at Vassar College” has made a name for himself in the emerging field of text analysis. Foster has worked with law enforcement on several high profile criminal cases, and he gained notoriety by identifying journalist Joe Klein as the mystery author of the political novel Primary Colors. A substantial body of circumstantial evidence has convinced Foster that Moore’s claim on “A Visit from St. Nicholas” is a false one.
Foster’s new book, Author Unknown, promotes the case of another gentleman poet contemporary of Moore’s, Henry Livingston Jr. of Poughkeepsie, NY. No original manuscript of the famous poem has ever surfaced, and Livingston died before Moore stepped forward to take credit for it. However, Livingston’s family has always maintained his authorship.
Most generally, the Dutch culture of New York from which St. Nick clearly emerged was essentially foreign to Moore, who spoke some German but no Dutch. However, it was the proud heritage of Henry Livingston. St. Nick’s big belly girded with a wide belt, and his big black boots are both elements caricatured in Irving’s Knickerbocker History, and so would have been accessible to any writer of those times. Two of his reindeer, however, carried the Dutch names “Dunder” and “Blixem” for thunder and lightning. A printer’s error in an early edition translated these to their German equivalents “Donder and Blitzen”, and Moore repeated the mistake in a hand written copy he made later in life.
In addition to the marked absence of moral castigations which define Moore’s other poems for children, “A Visit from St. Nicholas” romanticizes St. Nick’s pipe, with its “smoke that encircled his head like a wreath.” Episcopal minister Moore elsewhere denounced tobacco as “opium’s treacherous aid.”
Other of Livingston’s linguistic quirks which appear in the original poem are the wish for a “Happy” as opposed to a “Merry” Christmas, and his liberal use of exclamation points.
The poem quickly became wildly popular, and has remained so ever since. Thus the authorship of this “trifle” carries disproportionate significance because “A Visit from St. Nicholas” has come to define Americans’ understanding of who Santa Claus really is.
Merry Old Santa
In 1862 political cartoonist Thomas Nast contributed a visual element to further popularize Santa’s story. His cover illustration for Harper’s Weekly’s Christmas edition was titled “Santa Claus in Camp”, and showed St. Nicholas visiting with dispirited Union soldiers. The image was so enthusiastically received that Nast revisited the theme in 1881, creating the first portrait of the glad, portly figure we all recognize as Santa Claus. “Merry Old Santa” is shown here, smoking his pipe and carrying armloads of toys. His eyes twinkle out at us from under a wreath of holly on his head, and his whole demeanor radiates Christmas joy.
There is no question that Nast’s drawings and Moore’s (or Livingston’s) poem have great artistic merit, but the lasting appeal of the character they draw can also be attributed to changes in American society taking place at the same time. As the Industrial Revolution came into full force, the general population acquired unprecedented access to material goods of all sorts. This was the birth of our modern consumer culture. At the same time, smaller families and greater social mobility contributed to greater parental anxiety and the modern cult of childhood, which in one form or another is still with us today.
It may be that Santa Claus became the vehicle for the commercialization of Christmas, and especially for the custom of giving presents to children, precisely because the story of St. Nicholas stands apart from the religious celebration of Christ’s Nativity. After all, The Epiphany or Three Kings’ Day on January 6 is still celebrated by many Catholic Christians as the appropriate day for exchanging Christmas gifts. At the same time, children’s assiduous efforts to stay off Santa’s naughty list might fairly be considered a juvenile counterpoint to the Advent admonition for adult Christians to prepare our hearts for Christ’s second coming even as we make plans to celebrate His birth.
While the feast day of such an exalted individual as St. Nicholas is still worthy of celebration, the Saint’s modern manifestation as Santa Claus has become part and parcel of America’s celebration of Christmas. Our appreciation of his generous good humor is a natural product of American popular culture, so much so that we can truly say, we were made for each other.
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| Santa Through The Ages At The Bellvue | A Visit Of St. Nicholas |
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Santa Claus wrote on Dec 7, 2009 3:33 PM:
Since you referred to me by name, I thought I'd comment.
First, thank you for your thoughtful and informative article.
My legal name is Santa Claus, and I'm a Christian Monk, as St. Nicholas was many centuries ago.
I believe that Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Christ, not the crass, commercial, secular spectacle we see in many places, and that the greatest gift one can give is love, not presents.
I'm also a full-time volunteer advocate for the 2 million children in the U.S. annually who are abused, neglected, exploited, abandoned, homeless, and institutionalized through no fault of their own.
Especially this winter, many of these vulnerable children in dire straits may not have enough food or adequate shelter. So, I ask you and your readers to keep them in your prayers and to visit The Santa Claus Foundation to learn more about their plight.
Blessings to all, Santa Claus "