The real Santa was a follower of Christ who lived out his faith with a lot of love and a bountiful generosity.

1. Creative Youth
Ideas
The Real Jolly Ole
St. Nick
The real Santa was a follower of
Christ who lived out his faith with a
lot of love and a bountiful
generosity.

2. LONG BEFORE the
bright red suit, the
rotund figure, and the
flying reindeer, the
mythical Santa Claus
was a real person
named Saint Nicholas.
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3. The real St. Nicholas was the
bishop of Myra (modern
Turkey) and a follower of
Christ in the Fourth century.
He became famous for his
love for children and his
generosity. Over the years,
stories of his kindness grew.
Different nations added their
own national elements to the
images surrounding St.
Nicholas.
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4. But how did St. Nicholas,
the follower of Christ,
become a jolly fat man
who slides down
chimneys to leave gifts for
children?
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5. Until the 1800s, the image
of St. Nicholas was one of
a tall, thin man wearing a
bishop's robe and riding a
white horse. Washington
Irving offered a new image
in 1809 that was expanded
by Clement Clark Moore in
his 1822 poem, "An
Account of a Visit from St.
Nicholas."
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6. Moore was a professor at
the General Theological
Seminary in New York. On
Christmas Eve in 1822, New
York lay under a blanket of
snow. Moore had been
helping Jan, his grounds
keeper shovel snow.
Jan was a Dutchman, a tubby little man with a white
beard, twinkling eyes, and rosy cheeks. That evening,
Jan was driving Mr. Moore in a horse-drawn sleigh to
buy a turkey from a Manhattan market an hour away
when Moore got the idea for the poem.

7. As the snow continued to
fall, Moore sat in the sleigh
and composed the poem.
That night, he read it to his
family, who loved it. The
next year one of his children
took it to Sunday School to
be read. The teacher,
impressed by the poem,
took it to the local paper,
the Troy (NY) Sentinel that
published it anonymously on
December 23, 1823.
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8. For 15 years Moore denied
authorship because, as a
scholar, he felt it was too
embarrassing to acknowledge
authorship. The published
poem was an instant success.
Thomas Nast, cartoonist with
Harper's Weekly sketched
drawings of Moore's St.
Nicholas. That image is the
most prevalent to this day.
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9. As for the name Santa Claus,
it is the English pronunciation
of the Dutch word for St.
Nicholas, Sinterklass.
American children adopted
the Dutch pronunciation. But
with the American accent, it
came out Santa Claus. The red
suit came from a German
artist, who remembered that
the bishop's robe was red.
The flying sled and reindeer
were from Russian origin.
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10. Still, his real name is St.
Nicholas. He wasn't the
stubby little man in a
bright red suit with flying
reindeer. He was a
follower of Christ who
lived out his faith with a
lot of love and a
bountiful generosity.
CreativeChristmasIdeas.com

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