St. Nicholas

Well, it's almost Christmas. It just seems fitting to take such a joyous holiday, filled with good cheer and the giving of gifts and to spoil it with historical fact to disrupt and negate the spirit of it. Here I am, ready to ruin some childrens' dreams with the historical background of jolly old St. Nicholas, or Nikoloas of Myra, as he was often called. However, for the rest of this blog I'll be calling him Santa.

St. Nicholas saving the lives of innocents, saying
"whoa whoa whoa, come on, not on Christmas."

Santa was born in March of 270 and died in 343 A.D., which may just be the biggest downer of a sentence imaginable. He lived as a Christian bishop in modern day turkey, and due to his talent for performing miracles, he became known as Nikolaos the Wonderworker. He was the "patron saint of sailors, merchants, archers, repentant thieves, children, pawnbrokers and students" according to Wikipedia, meaning he had a pretty wide range of people under his "perform miracles for these people" contract. How one could link students, repentant thieves and arches all in one is beyond me - save for perhaps those that robbed from the rich Robin Hood style to pay off their student loans. 

There were a number of legends that followed Santa. The one that links him to the modern day, Coca-Cola based version we all know and love was likely the story of him and the three poor daughters of a man that could not afford to give them a dowry. At first this sounds wonderfully like a delightful children's tale worthy of Santa, until you factor in that the daughters would likely have to become prostitutes in order to have enough wealth for anyone to bother marrying them. Anyways, where Santa comes in is he dropped off a number of gold pouches (one for each daughter) so they'd have enough money to pay for their dowry. He did this in the dead of night so they wouldn't have to be seen accepting charity. One version of the story has him place the gold in socks that are hung over the embers of a fire to dry them, but how that could possibly relate to modern day Santa stories is beyond me. I mean, we use a washer dryer here... silly Greeks and their stories.

Apparently, this is a companion of the Dutch Santa,
Sinterklaas. Uh... he probably drops coal in stockings or something.

Apparently Santa was really big with sailors, and actually seen as somewhat of a Christian Poseidon. One such story that highlights this is during a famine in Myra. There were sailors ready to bring some grain over to the Byzantine kingdom, but the citizens where they ported were in much greater need for the wheat. Santa promised the sailors it wouldn't be a problem if he took some to feed them, although they were worried they would come up short in the weight count upon their delivery, marking them as thieves. However, when they arrived, they found the weight to be spot on. A Christmas miracle! So when you can't think of a gift to give someone, just go all historical on them and give them a few stalks of wheat. If they complain, guilt them through the collective pain and hunger of the people in Myra circa 300 AD. That'll show 'em.

There's one last legend of Santa that's really quite... well, I don't know. It's something. It's definitely something. It tells the tale of a butcher, possibly during the same famine, that was running out of food. He lured three children into his house where he promptly murdered them and placed them in barrels to sell them as ham. However, Santa Claus found this out and resurrected the dismembered children who presumedly suffered no emotional after effects of their murder and subsequent rebirth.Yeah... so... Christmas ham, anyone? No?

Well, I guess this isn't the modern Santa anyways. Much of that section comes from Odin anyways, and the Germanic pagan event of Yule... oh boy. One such idea is the sleigh of reindeer similar in nature to the "wild hunt" of Odin, a ghostly group of horses that march through the sky. I threw a picture of them below. How would you like them coming through your chimney? 

I think I'll stick with the Coca-Cola Santa. Merry Christmas, everyone!

Pictured: Dasher, Comet, Blitzen, angry
topless women with spears, Cupid, Dancer.

Famous Historical Figures Say the Darndest Things!

1. "And by the way, for all you kids watching at home, Santa just is white." Megyn Kelly on Fox News, demonstrating what Fox News does best.
2. "I'm going to shove coal so far up your stocking, you'll be coughing up diamonds!." - Futurama's Robot Santa
3. "I'm Santa Claus." -Santa, from the 1985 film "Santa Claus"