History Book: The man behind the myth of Santa Claus

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Monday, December 2nd. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Up next, the WORLD History Book. Today the life of a bishop who wasn’t very well known in the early days of the Christian church, yet who inspired a legend that survives to this day, a thousand years after his death. Here’s WORLD’s Emma Perley.

EMMA PERLEY: December 6th is the day the Western world celebrates Saint Nicholas—with a lot of very different traditions.

In Holland, kids fill shoes with hay or carrots as treats for Saint Nick’s horse, and leave out a Christmas wish list. If they’ve been bad, they might get a potato instead of chocolate.

In Eastern European countries, Saint Nick shows up alongside an evil sidekick named Krampus who scares bad children into behaving better.

And of course, Saint Nicholas is also known by other names. Just take it from Scott Calvin in The Santa Clause

AUDIO: The Santa Clause

For a long time, historians weren’t sure that Nicholas was even a real person. They thought he lived in the 4th century A.D., but there wasn’t any reliable information about him from this period. Much of what we know is passed down through oral tradition.

But in the 1980s, historian Gerardo Cioffari reevaluated ancient documents. Audio here from Saint Nicholas: The Real Story documentary interview with Adam English. He’s a professor of Christian Theology and Philosophy at Campbell University.

ADAM ENGLISH: He was able to reassert that there indeed was a historical person named Nicholas who lived and did many of the things that we have attributed to him. And he was able to establish that with a great degree of historical certainty.

Nicholas’s life remains largely unknown, except that he was a Christian bishop in Myra, a region in modern day Turkey. And he was well known for his generosity. One famous story says he helped a poor man who couldn’t give his three daughters a dowry for marriage.

DOC CLIP: So in the middle of the night, he slipped out under cover of darkness and he threw a bag of gold coins through the window into the house. It was found in the morning, the money was used as a dowry so that one of the girls might be able to marry out of their condition of poverty.

Nicholas went back to the house again to give them more gold for the other two girls. The father was so grateful that he waited for Nicholas to come by a third time so he could thank him. But Nicholas warned him not to tell anyone.

In 343 AD, Nicholas died and his church in Myra built a shrine in his honor. Some five hundred years later, Italian sailors stole his remains and moved them to Italy. And then in 1446, the Pope canonized him as a Saint. As his popularity spread around the world, so did the legend of Santa Claus.

Although the idea of Santa has been around for a long time, the jolly ol’ man in a magical sled pulled by reindeer hasn’t always looked that way.

In 1863, the cartoonist Thomas Nast was the first to depict Santa Claus in iconic red and white colors, with a round belly and white beard. But the image really took off when the Coca-Cola marketing team chose Santa Claus for their Christmastime mascot—always holding a glass or bottle of Coca-Cola in his hand. The 1930s ad campaign was so popular that the original artist, Haddon Sundblom, painted this classic depiction of Santa Claus for over 30 years. Audio here from the Coca-Cola Company:

COCA-COLA CLIP: It just happened but when it happened it was a beautiful accident and it created this wonderful Santa Claus for the rest of the world to enjoy.

Some pastors warn against merging the myth of Santa with the real works of Saint Nicholas … while they both embody the spirit of giving, one was a dedicated Christian while the other has become a symbol of consumerism. Audio here from Good Catholic’s interview with Jeffrey Kirby.

JEFFREY KIRBY: We have to be really carefuHl in terms of trying to turn a historic person into some type of fantastical thing.

We can’t avoid the myth of Santa Claus during the holidays, but it could serve as a chance to remember and celebrate the life of the man he was based on. From the Saint Nicholas documentary:

ADAM ENGLISH: We should never forget that first and foremost, he was a Christian pastor, a bishop committed to the gospel. This should be a monumental fact for Christian families who are looking for a way to connect to the Christmas season. We don’t simply have to reject consumerism and Santa Claus and everything that goes with this. We have an opportunity to reclaim a part of our own faith when we reclaim the Nicholas story and legacy and heritage in our own family traditions.

That’s this week’s WORLD History Book. I’m Emma Perley.

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