It's almost Christmas, and
you know what that means – any day now, someone will haul a dead
tree into the house and coerce me into festooning it with baubles and
lights. The best part of all this is getting to use the word
“festoon.”
It also means that, in just
a few short days, some of us will get visits from that merriest of
souls, Santa Claus – or, as I like to call him, Stalker Claus.
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| He watches you sleep, you know. ~ Matti Matilla |
Ever wondered what the deal
is with this guy? Here's the scoop:
1) Pop culture myth states
the Coca-Cola invented Santa Claus as we know him today – the fat,
bearded, jolly elf-creature with the alcoholic-red nose and the
cheerfully enabling wife. This, however, isn't true. Our modern Santa
Claus is the creation of two men, Clement Clarke Moore and Thomas
Nast.
Moore was an Episcopalian
minister. In 1822, he decided to amuse his children by writing the
now-famous Christmas poem, “An Account of a Visit from St.
Nicholas,” also known as “The Night Before Christmas.” The
popular image of Santa Claus as an supernatural entity capable of
zipping up and down chimneys and visiting every single child in the
world in one night originates from this poem, which Moore, fearing
death from embarassment, almost didn't publish.
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| With a face like that, I'm not surprised. |
Moore's poem also gives us
the concept of the flying sleigh, the original eight reindeer, and
the long-suffering Mrs. Claus. Prior to the 1820s, Santa Claus was a
confirmed bachelor.
Thomas Nast, an American
political cartoonist, did his part in 1881 when he drew the first
modern depiction of Santa Claus. Nast's cartoon depicted Santa with
his big white beard, his red, fur-trimmed suit, his workshop at the
North Pole, his elves, his sack of toys, and his wife.
2) Rudolph the Red-Nosed
Reindeer is a more modern addition to Santa's entourage. Moore's 1822
poem names only eight tiny, aerodynamic reindeer. Poor, beleaguered
Rudolph didn't come along until 1939, when Robert L. May, a
Montgomery Ward copywriter, wrote the poem as an advertising gimmick.
May's gimmick proved so
popular that the 1939 edition sold 2.5 million copies. A 1946 reprint
sold more than 3.5 million copies. To date, the poem has been
translated into 25 languages, and serves as the basis for the popular
television movie, which has been aired yearly since 1964.
3) Most historians that the
man who started it all, at least in American culture, was born in Turkey in about 280 AD. His name was Nicholas, and he loved God so
much that he eventually became a bishop, and later, a saint. His
relics can be found at the Basilica di San Nicola in Bari, Italy,
where they were interred after being stolen from their original
Turkish location in early 1087.
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| "We shall honor this man by stealing his bones. Thus sayeth the Lord." |
Saint Nicholas was revered
for his good works and general holiness. Legend has it that Nicholas
who was born into great wealth, traveled the country, distributing
money to the needy. In one famous legend, Saint Nicholas came upon
the home of a butcher who had murdered three children and was curing
their flesh to sell as ham. Not only did Nicholas expose the
murderer, he used his prayer-powers to bring the children back to
life.
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| I dunno, he looks pretty shifty-eyed to me. |
In another legend, Saint
Nicholas heard of a poor man whose three daughters would soon be
forced into prostitution, since there was no money to give them
dowries. Saint Nicholas came to the man's house in the middle of the
night and tossed a sack of gold through the window. The next night,
he returned with another sack of gold. On the third night, Saint
Nicholas caught wind that the man, now curious to know his
benefactor, would be lying in wait outside the house. Saint Nicholas,
not wanting to reveal his identity, crept up onto the roof of the
house and dropped the third sack of gold down the chimney. It landed
in the third daughter's stocking, which had been hanging over the
embers to dry.
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| Hmmm...sounds familiar... ~ Elf |
4) The first man to dress up
as Santa and sit in a department store was James Edgar. He did this
in 1890, in his Brockton, Massachusetts dry goods store. Edgar had to
have his Santa costume specially made, and he didn't just sit around
the store, either – he got out there and wondered the streets,
dressed as a fictional character.
Edgar's gambit really paid
off, though – word of the “Santa” in Brockton spread like wild
fire and soon parents from all over the state were begged and
wheedled into hauling their kids to Edgar's store to see the “real”
Santa. Today, you can find a dude in a stained costume sitting in
every mall and department store in the country around Christmastime.
If you're a Santa and you take your duties seriously, you can go to
the International University of Santa Claus and get a Master of Santa
Claus.
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| Like this guy, Jonathan Meath. He has a degree in Santa. |
