St. Nicholas

Dear Friends in Christ,

Yesterday some of our children participated in a celebration of St. Nicholas, whose feast day is December 6. Now for those of you who do not know who he is, St. Nicholas is the real-life saint who preceded our Santa Claus by about 1500 years. As a matter of fact the name Santa Claus is derived from St. Nicholas and has been in use only since the early 1800’s. Here’s a sketch of the evolution from St. Nicholas to Santa Claus.

St. Nicholas was the Bishop of the city of Myra (in modern Turkey) in the early 4th century. He was known for his works of charity. On one occasion he heard of a poor man who had three daughters. The man did not have enough money for their marriage dowries and was planning to give them up to a life of ill-repute. St. Nicholas secretly went to their house and threw bags of gold through a window. As a result, the girls were married off with dignity and avoided their poor father’s desperate plan for them. This reputation for charity prompted others to imitate St. Nicholas and so grew up the tradition of gift giving at this time of year.

St. Nicholas was popular among the German settlers in Pennsylvania and some of their traditions found their way to New York during the 1700’s. The German words for St. Nicholas are Sankt Niklaus. In 1804 the New York Historical Society was founded. St. Nicholas became patron of both the society and the city.

It was primarily the imagination of the writer Washington Irving who is responsible for transforming the image of St. Nicholas into the “jolly old elf” we know as Santa Claus. His Knickerbocker’s History of New York is a work of fiction, which pretends to connect a stout German-looking burgher with St. Nicholas. Some years later in 1823 the poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas” appeared in print with the saint described as dressed all in fur, with A bundle of toys…and the beard on his chin as white as the snow”. Doesn’t that sound a lot like the modern version?

The nineteenth century cartoonist Thomas Nast and the paintings of Norman Rockwell for The Saturday Evening Post continued the fictional portrayals and eventually the German name became “Santa Claus” (easier for us Americans to pronounce). Another factor in the evolution was the American desire to establish a more family friendly atmosphere to the post harvest celebrations that tended to be rather loud and out of control. And so today we have the holiday of gift giving and family gathering around the hearth that has become an American tradition.

Let’s remember St. Nicholas tomorrow and ask him to help us return to our true roots of venerating his blessed memory with works of charity and family harmony.

Fr. Hildebrand