Santa Claus Truths

The Truth About Santa Claus

One of the oldest Christmas legends is the story of Santa Clause. The legend of Santa Claus can be traced back hundreds of years to a monk named St. Nicholas.

The American version of the Santa Clause figure received its inspiration and its name from the Dutch legend of Sinter Klaas, brought by settlers to New York in the 17th century.

Since then, many variations and changes have been made to the Christmas legend of Santa Clause. Christmas traditions, stories and even Christmas decorations help to reveal the history of this legend.

Much of the Americanized Christmas legend of Santa and his most commonly known image comes from a poem, "A Visit From St. Nicolas" written in 1823 by writer Clement Clarke Moore.

This poem is most commonly known nowadays as "The Night Before Christmas." It was from this poem that the names of the reindeer arose, and the commonly held Christmas tradition of portraying Santa Clause with a laugh, a wink and a nod, and his finger laid aside his nose.

Over the years, Christmas decorations have shown variations of this commonly held image of Santa with different races in different areas.

One of the most commonly known images of Santa Clause to grace Christmas decorations in modern times is the human sized version of Santa Claus, rather than the description in Moore's poem of an elf.

This Santa was first introduced and depicted in a series of illustrations for the Coca-Cola advertisements from 1931. Regardless of the origin of Santa Claus or the exact physical appearance, the one thing that has not changed is the joy his legend brings to young and old alike year after year during the holiday season.