Who Is Santa Claus? The Real History

St. Nicholas of Myra, the real man

Nicholas was a Christian bishop in Myra, a town in the Roman province of Lycia, near present-day Demre in southern Turkey. He lived in the fourth century and is traditionally said to have died on December 6, a date that became his feast day.

Few reliable facts about his life survive, but many legends do. The most famous tells of a poor man who could not afford dowries for his three daughters. Nicholas secretly tossed bags of gold through their window at night, saving them from being sold into servitude. In some versions the gold landed in stockings drying by the fire, which is one explanation offered for the Christmas stocking.

Nicholas became one of the most popular saints in Europe, the patron of children, sailors and many cities. In 1087, sailors from Bari, Italy, took his relics from Myra to Bari, where they remain in the Basilica of San Nicola.

Sinterklaas and the Dutch connection

In the Netherlands and Belgium, St. Nicholas became Sinterklaas, a dignified bishop with a red robe, a miter and a long white beard. He still arrives every November by boat and brings gifts on the evening of December 5, known in the Netherlands as pakjesavond (present evening).

Dutch settlers brought Sinterklaas traditions to New Amsterdam, which later became New York. The English name Santa Claus is generally thought to come from the Dutch Sinterklaas. In 1809, Washington Irving's satirical book A History of New York featured St. Nicholas flying over rooftops in a wagon, helping revive interest in the saint among New Yorkers.

Father Christmas in Britain

England had its own figure, Father Christmas, who personified the merriment of the season rather than gift giving. He appeared in plays and pamphlets from at least the 1600s, often as a large, bearded man in a long robe, sometimes green. By the late 1800s, Father Christmas and the American Santa Claus had largely merged, and today the two names are used interchangeably in the UK.

The 1823 poem that created the modern Santa

On December 23, 1823, the Troy Sentinel in New York published an anonymous poem called A Visit from St. Nicholas, now known by its first line, "Twas the night before Christmas." It gave America a recognizable Santa: a plump, jolly elf with a twinkle in his eye who arrives on Christmas Eve in a miniature sleigh pulled by eight tiny reindeer, slips down the chimney and fills the stockings.

The poem named the reindeer: Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Dunder and Blixem, the last two later changed to Donner and Blitzen. Clement Clarke Moore, a New York professor, claimed authorship in 1837. Some descendants of Henry Livingston Jr. have argued he was the real author, but Moore remains the traditional attribution.

Thomas Nast draws Santa

The cartoonist Thomas Nast gave Santa his look. Starting with a drawing in Harper's Weekly in January 1863, during the Civil War, and continuing for more than two decades, Nast drew Santa as a round, bearded, cheerful man in fur-trimmed clothes.

Nast's drawings added many details we now take for granted: Santa's home at the North Pole, his workshop, his book of good and bad children, and letters from children. In later color prints Santa's suit was often red, though Nast's Santa appeared in other colors too.

Did Coca-Cola invent Santa's red suit?

No. This is one of the most repeated Christmas myths. Red was already a common color for Santa's suit in the late 1800s and early 1900s, appearing on magazine covers, postcards and in earlier advertising, including ads for White Rock beverages in the 1910s and 1920s.

What Coca-Cola did do was make one version of Santa extremely famous. Beginning in 1931, illustrator Haddon Sundblom painted Santa for Coca-Cola's holiday ads every year until 1964. His warm, human, grandfatherly Santa in a red suit appeared in magazines and on billboards across the world, and it strongly shaped the image most people picture today. So Coca-Cola popularized and standardized Santa's look, but it did not create it.

Reindeer, Rudolph and Mrs. Claus

Santa's supporting cast arrived gradually. The eight reindeer came from the 1823 poem. Rudolph, the ninth, was created in 1939 by Robert L. May, a copywriter for the Montgomery Ward department store, for a booklet given to shoppers. The story became even more famous after Johnny Marks, May's brother-in-law, turned it into a song in 1949.

Mrs. Claus appeared in American stories and poems in the mid-1800s, and Katharine Lee Bates, who also wrote America the Beautiful, helped popularize her in an 1889 poem called Goody Santa Claus on a Sleigh Ride. Elves as Santa's toy makers became common in magazines and books in the late 1800s.

Santa's helpers and names around the world

Santa goes by many names, and in some places a different figure brings gifts entirely:

• Père Noël in France
• Babbo Natale in Italy, where La Befana also brings gifts on the eve of Epiphany
• Weihnachtsmann in much of Germany, while the Christkind brings gifts in southern Germany and Austria
• Ded Moroz (Grandfather Frost) in Russia, who visits at New Year
• Joulupukki in Finland, whose name means Yule goat
• Papá Noel in Spain and much of Latin America

For more customs like these, see Christmas traditions around the world.