  | Father Christmas | |||
     | ||||
The Bishop, the Saint & Santa Claus... | ||||
A
child's version
The full story
But these transformations didn't just begin in the nineteenth century and Father Christmas was also transformed and re-imagined in the European world from which so many settlers came, bringing their traditions with them to the United States. Medieval Origins - St. Nicholas
The Dutch in particular to this day have various traditions surrounding Sinterklaasdag, including special food and songs and other jolly customs. The saint sets sail on his ship from Spain with his Turkish or Moorish assistant Zwarte Piet (Black Pete) to find shoes left out filled with vegetables for his horse to eat. In return Sinterklaas will dole out sweets. That's if you've been good. If you're not so lucky, Zwarte Piet will whack you with his stick. This
is
all fairly harmless. But Zwarte Piet has less salubrious antecedents.
In Germany since the middle ages, the saint's travelling companion was
a damned soul or demon in chains often known as These mini allegories of the Christian Last Judgement are the source of 'you'd better be good for goodness' sake' (Santa Claus is Coming to Town) and represent the darker side of Father Christmas. This darker side is expressed in the nineteenth-century Struwwelpeter, serving up rather brutal justice, as well as in the more recent Hogfather novel by Terry Pratchett. We can't say for certain, but the relatively gentle Zwarte Piet and Santa Claus' elves may be more good-natured developments of the older folklore about St Nicholas' damned and ferocious companion. The modern conception of the elves is almost a management handbook version of Father Christmas, in which the old fellow delegates some of the work. One of the most memorable depictions of all Santa's elves is in the classic children's book The Polar Express. The 'Modern' or 'Secular' Santa Claus - Origins
In Germany, an atmosphere of nationalism and a growing reaction against Christianity led to a great interest in - and to some degree an invention of - a more 'genuine' pagan past. This cultural climate saw the development of the 'Weihnachtsmann' (Christmas Man) as a replacement for St Nicholas. Gone were the bishop's paraphernalia in favour of long robes and a crown of holly, or a floppy hat, which might be a nod to the saintly bishop's mitre. Into this largely synthetic process was woven previously ignored traditions gleaned from pagan sources, not least of which was the identifying of the Weihnachtsmann with the gift-giving Norse god Woden.
The
waters were muddied in the nineteenth
century, as in Germany, by the antiquarian and nationalistic
interest in
pre-Christian customs, folklore and history. The muddying of the
waters has led some to claim ancient roots of the meaning of a
personified Christmas due to parallels, some more convincing than
others, between anthropomorphic Saxon Winter characters and Father
Christmas in his fur-trimmed robes. This is stretching the available
evidence to breaking point, not least in assuming continuity of meaning
over a thousand years. As in many of our Christmas traditions, it might
make more sense to call the English Father Christmas 'secular' (despite
his association with Catholic Christianity) rather than pagan. If we
make him secular then maybe Christians and Pagans can share him more
comfortably rather than competing
over the meaning of this Christmas custom. Defining The Modern Santa Claus
In the twenty-first century there seems to be some unease over Santa, just like with so many other aspects of Christmas. We look back to the crucial time in which the character was defined and grumble about 'Victorians' inventing traditions. Or we hear about the decisive impact of the 1930s Coca Cola campaign and worry about commercialism ruining Christmas. We might even be concerned about the ethical dilemma posed by telling stories to our children about Father Christmas without all kinds of provisos that spoil the fun. Occasionally it seems as though we've thrown out the baby with the bathwater, not wanting to be associated with a character with such a complex history, leaving a vacuum which is then filled with the kitschy, tasteless knick knacks featuring Santa on the toilet, dropping his trousers or doing all kinds of unsavoury things. But Father Christmas, as one of the key symbols of the season, offers a place where all kinds of views of Christmas can come together. Whether he is a Christian saint, a generous secular figure or a representative of nature and the season of Yule, there are so many rich stories around him it seems a shame if his eventual fate is a tacky, kitsch one. To finish this section, it seems appropriate to choose some depictions of Father Christmas or Santa Claus from stories, all of which offer more ways of looking at this icon of Christmas - whether that's Raymond Briggs' grumpy old man, JRR Tolkien's overworked, magical figure or Enid Blyton's kindly gentleman. All of the books are described in our section on kids' Christmas fiction. clicking on each image will open a short description in a new window.  Enid Blyton's Father Christmas (from The Christmas Book)  JRR Tolkien's Father Christmas (from Letters from Father Christmas)
Raymond Briggs' Father Christmas (from Father Christmas) | ||||
The
most famous image of Father Christmas, or Santa Claus, is the one
that is still dominant today: the jolly fellow to the left with his
sackful of toys and his magic sleigh and reindeer. This image is a
fairly recent development, defined during the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries in the United States and reinforced through the growth of
global media in the twentieth century. The famous Coca Cola advertising
campaign of the 1930s was at least partly responsible for Father
Christmas' now traditional colours of red and white.
The
Dutch and the
Germans are
responsible for
much of the story of Father Christmas. In both countries, the 6th of
December has been celebrated enthusiastically for many years as the
Feast of Saint Nicholas. Nicholas is one of the great saints
of
the Middle Ages, much loved for the stories in which he helps the poor,
prevents injustices and looks after sailors at sea. He was and is to
this day as popular in the East (see the Russian icon to the right) as
he was in the medieval West.
Knecht
Ruprecht (with many regional variations, see left). On the one
hand this symbolised the happy story of the power of Christ and the
Church over unpleasant demons. On the other hand - and rather more
alarmingly - Ruprecht might end up sticking children in his sack or
even eating those who hadn't
behaved during the year. Similar customs were particularly popular in
Southern Germany and Austria, where until fairly recently children were
terrified in this way. 
There
are two more important stories for the origins of our Father Christmas
in the nineteenth century, one in Germany and another in England.
At
the same time as the German 
If
Germany and, to a lesser extent England, came up with some of
the raw ingredients in efforts to secularise St Nicholas, it was in
America that the definitive recasting of both imagery of myth was
realised. The two men responsible for the Father Christmas or Santa
Claus we bring into our Christmases today were 