Saint Nicholas Day

That sounds about right. The actually concept of Santa was around already but Coca-Cola decided to capitalize on the idea and featured him almost as their company mascot for the holiday season. The campaign was apparently a great success since you can ask anyone to describe Santa Clause and 9 times out of 10 they'll describe that version. There are other versions of his image throughout the world but this is the most pervasive.

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So, I`ve been into reading up on the family history and perusing all the stories about the first ones to arrive a couple generations ago. My mother, who lays claim to German heritage, is sort of the family historian and, when she discovered my interest about a month ago, gave me a book called `The Germans are Coming`which was written in 1983 from a woman in her home town. It`s all about German folklore, customs and every day life both in Germany and when this woman`s family came to Canada. I finally sat down to read from it last night and found a passage detailing the evolution of St. Nick to Santa Claus! What follows is an abridged version, as the original was quite lengthy, of one common theory of the metamorphosis. Enjoy!


It begins with the festivities in Mid winter known as the Holy Twelve which coincided with the solstice. Solstice meaning sun stands still, this was a time of darkness. It was believed that the god Wode and his hunter on a grey horse rodwe through the darkened clouds checking that everything was in order on earth. No one went outside and nothing was left outside for fear that they`d be carried off by some strange being, never to be returned.

In the 12th century, Benedictime monks settling in Germany decided to take the best aspects of the Christian faith and fit them into the twelve days of solstice. The first day of the Holy Twelve became the night that Christ was born.Wode was renamed Ruppert and his horse Sunne Klass on Nikolaus.

Now, in turning to the tradition of St. Nikolaus, He was known to do his good works with the assistance of a man named Rupert in a horse drawn carriage on the day of his feast, December 6th. Here we see an amalgamation of the pagan god and his steed with the christian aspect of the saint. The integration of Wode with St. Nikolaus and St. Nikolaus with Christmas happened around 1200.

Then we bring into the mix the tradition of the Christ Child riding on a donkey to give gifts at Christmas time to all the good boys and girls. This would happen at what we now know as Christmas.

So, Sunne Klaas from the tradition of Wode is also known as Nikolaus. St. Nikolaus was known for the giving of gits on the 6th while the Christ Child did the same on the 24th-25th. So it seems that as Christianity intermingled with pagan beliefs, these three aspects of Christmas lore were brought together into one, creating Santa Claus.

Thank you cemwerewolf for the info! It makes a lot of sense but still not really a solid answer to the Santa Clause question (why did they combine those aspects into Santa; why was Santa as Santa needed?). I'll give it a rest.

my mom offered me a small plastic duck dressed as Santa's reindeer!
I am so happy!

Anyone got anything today in their boots? :woohoo:
My mom called me yesterday and hinted something about Saint Nicholas Day and if I wanted anything, but I declined and said that anything I need I can buy myself, but was happy that she thought of me. :kiss:

Saint Nick seems to traffic in socks around my house so my husband and I shall have warm toes this winter! And, we actually got our Saint Nick gifts (and my birthday gift) about a week ago as my mom had surgery a few days ago and wasn't sure if she'd be up to doing deliveries just yet.