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Santa Claus
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| According to the
Encyclopedia Britannica, Santa Claus started with a real person,
Saint Nicholas, a minor saint from the fourth century. |
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| According to
tradition, he was born in the ancient Lycian seaport city of
Patara, and, when young, he traveled to Palestine and Egypt. He
became bishop of Myra soon after returning to Lycia. He was
imprisoned during the Roman emperor Diocletian's persecution of
Christians but was released under the rule of Emperor
Constantine the Great and attended the first Council (325) of
Nicaea. After his death he was buried in his church at Myra, and
by the sixth century his shrine there had become well known. In
1087, Italian sailors or merchants stole his alleged remains
from Myra and took them to Bari, Italy; this removal greatly
increased the saint's popularity in Europe, and Bari became one
of the most crowded of all pilgrimage centres. Nicholas' relics
remain enshrined in the 11th-century basilica of San Nicola,
Bari. |
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| Nicholas' reputation
for generosity and kindness gave rise to legends of miracles he
performed for the poor and unhappy. In the Middle Ages, devotion
to Nicholas extended to all parts of Europe. He became the
patron saint of Russia and Greece; of charitable fraternities
and guilds; of children, sailors, unmarried girls, merchants,
and pawnbrokers; and of such cities as Fribourg, Switz., and
Moscow. Thousands of European churches were dedicated to him,
one as early as the sixth century, built by the Roman emperor
Justinian I, at Constantinople (now Istanbul). Nicholas'
miracles were a favourite subject for medieval artists and
liturgical plays, and his traditional feast day was the occasion
for the ceremonies of the Boy Bishop, a widespread European
custom in which a boy was elected bishop and reigned until Holy
Innocents' Day (December 28.) |
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| After the Reformation,
Nicholas' cult disappeared in all the Protestant countries of
Europe except Holland, where his legend persisted as Sinterklaas
(a Dutch variant of the name Saint Nicholas). Dutch colonists
took this tradition with them to New Amsterdam (now New York
City) in the American colonies in the 17th century. Sinterklaas
was adopted by the country's English-speaking majority under the
name Santa Claus, and his legend of a kindly old man was united
with old Nordic folktales of a magician who punished naughty
children and rewarded good children with presents. |
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| It is amazing but true
that the common, popular view of Santa that we all have today,
along with all the crazy things around Santa like the sleigh,
the reindeer and the chimney, all came largely from two
publishing events that occurred in the 1800s and one advertising
campaign in this century. Clement Moore wrote "The Night Before
Christmas" in 1822 for his family. It was picked up by a
newspaper, then reprinted in magazines and it spread like
wildfire. Moore admitted authorship in 1838. If you read the
poem you will find that he names the reindeer, invents the
sleigh, comes up with the chimney and the bag of toys, etc.
Nearly everyone in America has been able to recognize or recite
this poem since the 1830s. |
| Then, between 1863 and
1886, Harper's Weekly (a popular magazine of the time) ran a
series of engravings by Thomas Nast. From these images come the
concepts of Santa's workshop, Santa reading letters, Santa
checking his list and so on. Coca-Cola also played a role in the
Santa image by running a set of paintings by Haddon Sundblom in
its ads between 1931 to 1964. |
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| The red and white suit
came, actually, from the original Saint Nicholas. Those colors
were the colors of the traditional bishop's robes. |
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For More Information Contact:
Mayfield Electric & Water Systems
301 East Broadway, Mayfield, KY 42066
Tel: 270-247-4661
FAX: 270-247-0550
Internet: jcre@mayfieldews.com
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