by Dr. Iain
Corness
Being the time of the year when people send Xmas cards
and gifts to each other, I thought it might be a good time to interview
one of the mainstays of the season. Father Christmas himself, the jolly
old Ho-Ho-Ho man who has touched all our lives in one way or another when
we were younger.
I was fortunate enough to catch up with the man in the
red suit and ermine trim during a brief stop-over in Thailand, after he
had to change his travel plans when he was asked not to visit shopping
centers in Australia this year, as some decision makers had decreed that
Santa was no longer “politically correct” being allied to the
Christian religion (even though it is the professed majority religion in
that country). I asked Santa about this and he expressed great regret.
“The decision makers did not consult the children,” was all that I
could get him to say. However, I was able to get close to him, despite his
girth, and unravel some of the mysteries that make up modern day Santa
Claus.
Santa was born around 245 AD (788 BE) in Patara in
Lycia, Anatolia, a province on the southwest coast of Asia Minor (present
day Turkey). He was a good and obedient student and this is one reason why
he has always favoured children who have been well behaved during the
year. He did not come from a very rich family, and he often had to do
without. This was to have a great bearing on his actions later in life.
Following many years at school where he studied under
the local priests, he felt that his calling was in the priesthood and
joined the church, eventually working his way up through the system,
becoming a bishop. This was when he felt that he could really begin to
help people in the local society.
However, Santa was not one to show his generosity
publicly. He would walk quietly in disguise around his parish and give
gifts and food to poor children. He had the ability to find out who was
suffering, and do his best to help. It was on one of these trips that he
inadvertently started a legend. A nobleman with three daughters had fallen
on hard times and he was unable to pay for their dowries, dooming his
daughters to spinsterhood. Santa explained reluctantly what happened next.
“I collected the dowry for one daughter and threw it through the open
window one night. The next day I collected for the second and threw it
through the window as well. After collecting for the third daughter I
found the window had been closed as it was a bitter winter’s night, so I
climbed up on the roof and dropped the sack down the chimney. It turned
out the girls had left their stockings hanging from the mantle-piece, and
some of the money ended up in the stockings. From then on, people would
hang up their stockings at Xmas.”
From events such as this, the legend of Santa grew, so
I took the opportunity to ask Santa about some of the other pieces of
folklore associated with him and Xmas time. Firstly, the reindeer. “The
secret about the way I travel around the world at Xmas was let out by
Clement C. Moore in 1823, who wrote ‘A Visit from St. Nicholas’, which
told everyone about my reindeer. Rudolph is the most famous, of course,
but he needs Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner and
Blitzen, to help.”
One of the other pieces of folklore is the fact that
the children should leave out some cookies and milk for Santa when he
calls in the middle of the night. Santa said there was much more to this
than just a snack for a hungry sock filler! “This came from the Paradise
Tree from Western Germany, where the home would have a tree decorated with
cookies and wafers. I began to get so hungry that I would have one or two
and people eventually heard that I needed something to nibble, so they
would put out a special plate by the fire, just for me.”
For someone who only comes out once a year and is seen
by so few people, I thought it amazing that everyone knows what Santa
looks like. Santa knows the reason for this too, “Thomas Nast was the
first artist to draw me as a fat and jolly old man. He was born in 1840 in
Landau, Baden, Germany and became an American cartoonist after arriving in
the United States at the age of six. He must have been hiding in the
kitchen when I came down his chimney and remembered what I looked like;
however, after all the cookies since then, I am even fatter now!”
Since Santa does not “belong” to any one country
these days, I asked him what other names was he known by. He replied,
“In southern Germany some people call me Kris Kringle. In France I am
Pere Noel and Papa Noel in many Spanish speaking countries. In Dutch
speaking areas I am Sinte Klaas, while other people call me Sant Nikolaas.
In Denmark I am ‘Julemanden’ (Christmas Man), while in Finland they
call me Joulupukki.”
It was all too soon that the legendary figure told me he would have to
go back to the North Pole, where he and Mrs. Claus and the elves were hard
at work finishing off the toys for good boys and girls. I am lucky that I
could catch a glimpse in my later life of someone who lived in my tender
years. I must thank my mother and late father for helping keep the spirit
of Santa alive during my childhood, a spirit that I passed on to my
children. Hopefully they too will do the same with theirs. Santa Claus is
much too nice a concept, in every way, to be allowed to die. Australia,
you should be ashamed!
