It is that time of year when all things holiday take center stage. For families with children, Santa Claus may be a topic of daily or almost daily discussion. Leave it to the youngsters to come up with endless questions about the mysterious jolly old man in the red suit. What is his favorite food? How does he fit down the chimney? What does he do at houses where there is no chimney? Don’t the reindeer get tired flying all that way? All these questions and more are probably familiar to parents, and they may even remember asking those questions themselves when they were younger.
One genealogy – related question about Santa Claus is the question of who his parents were. I do not know the answer to that one, nor do I know where to find it. Some people say that the genealogy of Santa Claus begins long, long ago, even before Christ was born. According to the Santa News Journal (which may not be a reputable genealogy reference, but it was one of the better accounts that I could find), before Christ was born, gift giving and wintertime feasting were commonplace in Northern Europe, in places that later became known as Finland and the Netherlands.
The early character associated with the winter festivities did not bring gifts, interestingly enough. He dressed as a goat, danced wildly and frightened the children, and expected to be offered food. The feasts and celebrations of that era were unruly public carnivals, and the participants were adults, not children. There was much decorating, eating, drinking, and plenty of trickery and general mischief.
Once Christianity entered the scene, it became clear to Christian leaders that the pagan winter festivals were deeply rooted in culture, and it would be difficult to convince people to cease observing them. Instead, they brought new meaning to the wintertime festivities and dedicated a day, December 25, to celebrating the birth of Christ. In its new identity as a holy day, Christmas festivities became more family friendly and less of a wild carnival. Later on, Saint Nicholas became affiliated with the holiday and the tradition of giving gifts to children in his name was added to the celebration. Saint Nicholas is the patron saint of children, and is said to have worked many miracles in his time in addition to having given many gifts to needy children.
photo by greenfinger on morguefile.com.