Santa Claus, also known as Father Christmas in Britain and the former British colonies, is usually depicted as a portly, jolly old man with white beards and a red outfit.
Since the 20th Century, Santa Claus has been believed to make a list of children throughout the world, putting them into two categories: naughty and nice, depending on their behaviour that year. This idea was popularized by the 1934 song “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town.” Santa, then, delivers presents, including toys and candies to all of the well-behaved children in the world, and sometimes coal to the naughty children on the single night of Christmas Eve; a feat he accomplishes with the aid of the elves who make the toys in the workshop and the flying reindeers that pull his sleigh.
Nigerian children, especially those born in the 70s and 80s, didn’t expect Father Christmas to sneak into their homes. Instead, they were taken to see him at any of the locations where he was stationed, with the younger ones wailing in fright when “forced” to sit in his lap before receiving their gift.
But who was the real person behind this mythical figure? Here are 12 things you should know:
1. “Father Christmas” was real. His name was Saint Nicholas. He was born in about A.D. 280. In the Greek language, the name Nicholas means “victorious” or “hero of the people”, and he did indeed become a very popular figure in the centuries that followed his death.
2. Nicholas and his parents lived in Turkey in the third century and were Christians. Nicholas’ parents had prayed and asked God for a child, much as Abraham and Sarah had done; hence they considered him a gift.
3. Nicholas was ordained as a young teenager. Entering the priesthood at age 19, he later became a Christian bishop of a small, coastal village, with his influence spreading into many nations.
4. His parents diligently taught their young son devotion to God and to be very generous to the poor. His uncle, the bishop who ordained him, prophesied that Nicholas would offer guidance and consolation to many people, and live a life of enlightenment.
5. Nicholas was known for helping the poor, for praying, fasting, and standing steadfast in faith and goodness. Many miracles were brought about through his prayers. Included among the accounts of his ministry is the report of twin brothers who were raised from the dead. It was written that one could hardly keep count of the virtue and goodness he carried around him.
6. Stories of Nicholas spread throughout Greece and into Russia. He became the popular patron saint of Russians, who called him “Nikolai, the wonderworker”.
7. One particular story of Nicholas’ goodness is the reason many pictures show him with three golden spheres. These represent three bags of gold that he gave to a poor man so his three daughters could be married. The man was so poor his daughters had no dowries, and he was so desperate he was planning to sell them into what we would call white slavery.
To keep that from happening, Nicholas threw a bag of gold pieces through the man’s window in the night so no one would know who had done it. He wanted God to get the credit for it. Because of this, the eldest daughter had a dowry. She was no longer an outcast and could be married.
Not long after that, Nicholas did the same thing for the second daughter, saving her from a familiar fate. When he did it for the third daughter, the father caught him.
8. So much of what Saint Nicholas was, and what Santa Claus has become, has been distorted, but he was and will always be remembered as a gift giver.
9. When Nicholas died on December 6, A.D. 343, he is said to have quoted Psalm 11 with his last breath: “In the Lord I put my trust.”
10. In 1087, the remains of St Nicholas’ grave were transported from Turkey to Bari, Italy, where a basilica was built in his honor. Soon after, his popularity spread throughout Italy and across Western Europe. December 6, the day of his death, became St. Nicholas Day on the Roman Catholic Calendar, and the custom of gift-giving on December 6 began in France and spread across all of Europe.
11. With the Protestant Reformation of the 1500s, the worshiping of the saints was denounced, and St. Nicholas Day was no longer observed in England.
12. Christopher Columbus brought the first celebration of St. Nicholas Day to the New World when he landed in the West Indies on December 6, 1492, and named the harbor Port of St. Nicholas, in honor of the patron saint of sailors.
Similarities between the better characteristics of the Santa Claus character, who gives gifts at night-not to be seen by anyone, and St. Nicholas’ gold-piece throwing, are obvious. Various explanations have been documented about how the story of such a man of God got turned into a story of an elf workshop at the North Pole.
Whatever events may have led to the creation of the myth, what’s important is the true legacy. Saint Nicholas was not a jolly fat man who climbed down chimneys, and he didn’t have flying reindeers. He was a godly man whose reputation for giving to people caused him to be a revered example of what compassion and giving signifies.
Nicholas grew up knowing The Gift Giver, Almighty God, and His ultimate Gift, Jesus Christ. Raise your children to do the same!
