Then, during the early decades of the 19th century, all that changed thanks to a series of poets and writers who strove to make Christmas a family celebration—by reviving and remaking St. Nicholas.
From St. Nicholas to Santa Claus: the surprising origins of Kris Kringle
Santa Claus, Father Christmas, St. Nick—no matter the name, everyone knows the story of this plump, jolly, bringer of gifts. Or do they?
By Brian Handwerk
Published December 25, 2018
• 15 min read
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Any kid can tell you where Santa Claus is from—the North Pole. But his historical journey is even longer and more fantastic than his annual, one-night circumnavigation of the globe.
The progenitor of the modern American Santa was born in the Mediterranean during the Roman Empire, his legend evolved across northern Europe, and he finally assumed his now-familiar form on the shores of the New World. Who is this ancestor of Santa, and how did he change over time? (See “Christmas in July—Inside a Santa Summer Camp.”)
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In cultures and countries across the globe, Saint Nick is central to the celebration—and commercialization—of Christmas.
In this photo from a January 1957 National Geographic article, Alaskan reindeer pull Santa Claus’s sleigh during the Pageant of Peace in Washington, D.C. The annual event, which includes the lighting of the National Christmas Tree, began in 1923 under President Calvin Coolidge.
The Santa we know today bears little resemblance to the original Saint Nicholas. Yet the character has proved an enduring icon of Christmas. For many people around the world, the jolly, red-suited, white-bearded figure is a central part of the holiday’s celebration—and commercialization.
As you wait for Santa to come down your chimney tonight, browse through these images of Old Saint Nick from the National Geographic photo archive.
—By Anna Lukacs, photo gallery by Kathy Moran
A Right Jolly Old Elf
In cultures and countries across the globe, Saint Nick is central to the celebration—and commercialization—of Christmas.
In this photo from a January 1957 National Geographic article, Alaskan reindeer pull Santa Claus’s sleigh during the Pageant of Peace in Washington, D.C. The annual event, which includes the lighting of the National Christmas Tree, began in 1923 under President Calvin Coolidge.
The Santa we know today bears little resemblance to the original Saint Nicholas. Yet the character has proved an enduring icon of Christmas. For many people around the world, the jolly, red-suited, white-bearded figure is a central part of the holiday’s celebration—and commercialization.
As you wait for Santa to come down your chimney tonight, browse through these images of Old Saint Nick from the National Geographic photo archive.
—By Anna Lukacs, photo gallery by Kathy Moran
Photograph by Volkmar K. Wentzel, Nat Geo Image Collection
Jolly Old St. Nicholas?
Every December 6, the faithful celebrate St. Nicholas Day in cities all over the world, with the largest ones taking place in Europe. Images of St. Nicholas vary considerably, but none of them look much like the red-cheeked, white-bearded old man seen everywhere today. One of the most compelling views of the real St. Nick, who lived in the third and fourth centuries, was created not by ancient artists but by using modern forensic facial reconstruction.
Scholarly debate over where the remains of the Greek bishop rest continues to this day, but traditionally, it was believed that the bones of St. Nicholas were stolen by Italian sailors during the 11th century and taken to the crypt of the Basilica di San Nicola on the southeast coast of Italy. When the crypt was repaired in the 1950s, the saint’s skull and bones were documented with x-ray photos and thousands of detailed measurements. (For theories on other possible resting places of St. Nicholas, read: “Could the Remains of Santa Claus Be in This Turkish Church?”)
Caroline Wilkinson, a facial anthropologist at the University of Manchester (England), used these data and modern software simulations to create a modern reconstruction of the long-dead man. Wilkinson put a human face on Santa’s original namesake—one with a badly broken nose, possibly suffered during the persecution of Christians under the Roman Emperor Diocletian.
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Much of her work is necessarily subject to interpretation. The size and shape of the facial muscles that once covered Nicholas’s skull had to be inferred, and the shape of that skull itself was recreated from two-dimensional data. Digital artists added details that were based on best guesses, including the olive-toned skin most common among Greek Mediterraneans like Nicholas, brown eyes, and the gray hair of a 60-year-old man.
“We are bound to have lost some of the level of detail you would get by working from photographs, but we believe this is the closest we are ever going to get to him,” Wilkinson said in the BBC Two feature film of the project entitled The Real Face of Santa.
From bishop to gift giver
How did this St. Nicholas turn into the North Pole-dwelling bringer of Christmas gifts? The original saint was a Greek born in the late third century, around 280 A.D. He became bishop of Myra, a small Roman town in modern Turkey. Nicholas was neither fat nor jolly but developed a reputation as a fiery, wiry, and defiant defender of church doctrine during the Great Persecution in 303, when Bibles were burned and priests made to renounce Christianity or face execution.
Nicholas defied these edicts and spent years in prison before the Roman emperor Constantine ended Christian persecution in 313 with the Edict of Milan. Nicholas’s fame lived long after his death (on December 6 in the mid-fourth century, around 343) because he was associated with many miracles, and reverence for him continues to this day independent of his Christmas connection. He is the protector of many types of people, from orphans to sailors to prisoners.
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Nicholas rose to prominence among the saints because he was the patron of so many groups. By about 1200, explained University of Manitoba historian Gerry Bowler, author of Santa Claus: A Biography, he became known as a patron of children and magical gift bringer because of two great stories from his life.
In the better-known tale, three young girls are saved from a life of prostitution when young Bishop Nicholas secretly delivers three bags of gold to their indebted father, which can be used for their dowries.
“The other story is not so well known now but was enormously well known in the Middle Ages,” Bowler said. Nicholas entered an inn whose keeper had just murdered three boys and pickled their dismembered bodies in basement barrels. The bishop not only sensed the crime, but resurrected the victims as well. “That’s one of the things that made him the patron saint of children.”
For several hundred years, circa 1200 to 1500, St. Nicholas was the unchallenged bringer of gifts and the toast of celebrations centered around his feast day, December 6. The strict saint took on some aspects of earlier European deities, like the Roman Saturn or the Norse Odin, who appeared as white-bearded men and had magical powers like flight. He also ensured that kids toed the line by saying their prayers and practicing good behavior.
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But after the Protestant Reformation began in the 1500s, saints like Nicholas fell out of favor across much of northern Europe. “That was problematic,” Bowler said. “You still love your kids, but now who is going to bring them the gifts?”
Bowler said that, in many cases, that job fell to baby Jesus, and the date was moved to Christmas rather than December 6. “But the infant’s carrying capacity is very limited, and he’s not very scary either,” Bowler said. “So the Christ child was often given a scary helper to do the lugging of presents and the threatening of kids that doesn’t seem appropriate coming from the baby Jesus.”
Some of these scary Germanic figures again were based on Nicholas, no longer as a saint but as a threatening sidekick like Ru-klaus (Rough Nicholas), Aschenklas (Ashy Nicholas), and Pelznickel (Furry Nicholas). These figures expected good behavior or forced children to suffer consequences like whippings or kidnappings. Dissimilar as they seem to the jolly man in red, these colorful characters would later figure in the development of Santa himself. (Related: “Who Is Krampus? Explaining the Horrific Christmas Devil.”)
Saint Nicholas Drawings
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