CHRISTMAS, SAINT NICHOLAS AND SANTA CLAUS

St.Nicholas was a kind miracle-worker, the persecutor of evil and patron of children. When Nicholas was born in Patara, Lycia, a province of Asia Minor, seventeen centuries ago, nobody could even think that once he would become a prototype of  Santa Claus. 

What St. Nicholas did during his lifetime makes humanity remember him for 1,700 years now. He was slightly different from other children since childhood. The town-dwellers knew that the boy would always help anybody out of a predicament: he would help an old person to carry their burden, would help a lone woman fix a household problem and would give a helping hand to a cart-driver if his cart got stuck in the mud. Nicholas kept performing good deeds. This made other people kinder, too, and they in turn tried to help anybody who wanted assistance. 

Lots of tales are told about Nicholas as an adult. A citizen of Patara had lost all his money and had moreover to support three daughters who could not find husbands because of their poverty, so the wretched man was going to give them over to prostitution. When this came to the ears of Nicholas, he took three purses of gold and, under cover of darkness, threw them into the chimney of their house. The purses fell into the girls’ shoes, which were getting dry near the fireplace. That was a dowry for the girls who soon duly married. It is to this day that millions of children leave their shoes by the fireplace in the hope that they will find presents there. 

Once Nicholas saved a ship sinking during a storm. He sent up a prayer, and the sea immediately grew calm. 

In Myra, the capital of Lycia, the holy Nicholas was chosen bishop. He continued to help and save people throughout his life. St. Nicholas left this world when a very old man, after a brief illness. 

In Russia St. Nicholas is one of the most-loved saints. Ordinary peasants have always prayed to him for help in curing a cow that’s fallen ill, they prayed to him for rain if the spell of dry weather grew too long or for assistance to cope with or ward off some misfortune. 

Most Christians associate the celebration of Christmas or New Year with Santa Claus. After all the grown-ups were children once and expected a present from a kind wizard. Santa Claus as it is perceived today, - a good-natured little old man, - came into existence in the United States fairly recently, at Christmas of 1822. It was then that Clement Clarke Moore wrote his famous poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas” depicting the Saint as a jolly old elf with a little round belly, proving that he enjoyed delicious food and consumed it in large amounts. St. Nicholas also had a pipe to smoke tobacco. When St. Nicholas was turned into Santa Claus, he gave up his donkey, bought eight reindeer and got a bag of presents. Georges Webster said in his poem that came off the press back in 1869 that Santa Claus makes his home in the North Pole. Some time later publisher Louis Prang ushered in, in the USA, the English tradition of sending Christmas greetings to one’s relatives and friends. He released a Xmas card showing Santa Claus in red clothes. From then on Santa Claus has been drawn increasingly more often in a red gown. 

The English name Santa Claus springs from the Dutch word “Sinterklaas”, or ashes. That’s the way the first Dutch in America began to call St. Nicholas when they settled in the New World. He was believed to be the patron of children and seafarers. On the night before Christmas he took presents to children and put them into their stockings which they had left hanging by the chimneys expressly for the purpose. Actually he began to do this when he came to be known as Santa Claus, but when he was still Sinterklaas, he was more of a stern tutor, for he filled the stockings with ashes if the children behaved badly. 

In Russia Santa Claus is known as Father Frost, and he looks altogether different. His life story goes back to old Slavic folklore. Santa Claus resembles a gnome, while Father Frost is a giant who patrols his domain and gives children presents in the process. 

And to wind up, here’s some curious information. 

According to scientists, Santa Claus has 31 hours (thanks to the time difference in different parts of the world) to visit at least 92 million families, which means he must pop round to 822 homes every second. To achieve this, he must travel at 1,625 kilometres per second, which equals 3,000 times the speed of sound. Even if he gave each child just a chocolate egg as a present, his egg-filled sleigh would weigh 250 tonnes. 

So, that’s the Christmas story about the way St. Nicholas was transformed into Santa Claus by decree of Providence.