Bishop St. Nicholas, early American St. Nick, & American Santa, from Santa Claus Comes to America, by Caroline Singer & Cyrus Baldridge, Alfred Knopf, 1942

How did the kindly Christian saint, good Bishop Nicholas, become a roly-poly red-suited American symbol for merry holiday festivity and commercial activity? History tells the tale.

The first Europeans to arrive in the New World brought St. Nicholas. Vikings dedicated their cathedral to him in Greenland. On his first voyage, Columbus named a Haitian port for St. Nicholas on December 6, 1492. In Florida, Spaniards named an early settlement St. Nicholas Ferry, now known as Jacksonville. However, St. Nicholas had a difficult time during the 16th century Protestant Reformation which took a dim view of saints. Even though both reformers and counter-reformers tried to stamp out St. Nicholas-related customs, they had very little long-term success except in England where the religious folk traditions were permanently altered. (It is ironic that fervent Puritan Christians began what turned into a trend to a more secular Christmas observance.) Because the common people so loved St. Nicholas, he survived on the European continent as people continued to place nuts, apples, and sweets in shoes left beside beds, on windowsills, or before the hearth.

"New Year's Hymn to St. Nicholas," colonial Dutch life, Albany, NY. Harper's New Monthly Magazine, March 1881 St. Nicholas Center Collection

The first Colonists, primarily Puritans and other Protestant reformers, did not bring Nicholas traditions to the New World. What about the Dutch? Although it is almost universally believed that the Dutch brought St. Nicholas to New Amsterdam, scholars find scant evidence of such traditions in Dutch New Netherland. Colonial Germans in Pennsylvania kept the feast of St. Nicholas, and several later accounts have St. Nicholas visiting New York Dutch on New Years' Eve (New Year gift-giving had become the English custom in 1558, supplanting Nicholas, and this English custom was still found in New York until 1847).

In 1773 New York non-Dutch patriots formed the Sons of St. Nicholas, primarily as a non-British symbol to counter the English St. George societies, rather than to honor St. Nicholas. This society was similar to the Sons of St. Tammany in Philadelphia. Not exactly St. Nicholas, the children's gift-giver.

Detail from broadside by Alexander Anderson, December 6, 1810 St Nicholas Center Collection

After the American Revolution, New Yorkers remembered with pride their colony's nearly-forgotten Dutch roots. John Pintard, the influential patriot and antiquarian who founded the New York Historical Society in 1804, promoted St. Nicholas as patron saint of both society and city. In January 1809, Washington Irving joined the society and on St. Nicholas Day that same year, he published the satirical fiction, Knickerbocker's History of New York, with numerous references to a jolly St. Nicholas character. This was not the saintly bishop, rather an elfin Dutch burgher with a clay pipe. These delightful flights of imagination are the source of the New Amsterdam St. Nicholas legends: that the first Dutch emigrant ship had a figurehead of St. Nicholas: that St. Nicholas Day was observed in the colony; that the first church was dedicated to him; and that St. Nicholas comes down chimneys to bring gifts. Irving's work was regarded as the "first notable work of imagination in the New World."

The New York Historical Society held its first St. Nicholas anniversary dinner on December 6, 1810. John Pintard commissioned artist Alexander Anderson to create the first American image of Nicholas for the occasion. Nicholas was shown in a gift-giving role with children's treats in stockings hanging at a fireplace. The accompanying poem ends, "Saint Nicholas, my dear good friend! To serve you ever was my end, If you will, now, me something give, I'll serve you ever while I live."

The 19th century was a time of cultural transition. New York writers, and others, wanted to domesticate the Christmas holiday. Christmas of old was not images of families gathered cozily around hearth and tree exchanging pretty gifts and singing carols while smiling benevolently at children. Rather, it was characterized by raucous, drunken mobs roaming streets, damaging property, threatening and frightening the upper classes. The holiday season, coming after harvest when work was eased and more leisure possible, was a time when workers and servants took the upper hand, demanding largess and more. At the same time a new understanding of family life and the place of children was also emerging. Childhood was coming to be seen as a stage of life in which greater protection, sheltering, training and education were needed. And so the season came to be tamed, turning toward shops and home. St. Nicholas, too, took on new attributes to fit the changing times.

Sante Claus The Children's Friend, 1821

1821 brought some new elements with publication of the first lithographed book in America, the Children's Friend. This "Sante Claus" arrived from the North in a sleigh with a flying reindeer. The annonymous poem and illustrations proved pivital in shifting imagery away from a saintly bishop. Sante Claus fit a didactic mode, rewarding good cbehavior and punishing bad, leaving a "long, black birchen rod . . . directs a Parent's hand to use when virtue's path his sons refuse." Gifts were safe toys, "pretty doll . . . peg-top, or a ball; no crackers, cannons, squibs, or rockets to blow their eyes up, or their pockets. No drums to stun their Mother's ear, nor swords to make their sisters fear; but pretty books to store their mind with knowledge of each various kind." The sleigh itself even sported a bookshelf for the "pretty books." The book also notably marked S. Claus' first apperance on Christmas Eve, rather than December 6th.

The jolly elf image received another big boost in 1823, from a poem destined to become immensely popular, "A Visit from St. Nicholas," now better known as "The Night Before Christmas."

He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot;
A bundle of toys he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a peddler just opening his pack.

1848 T. C. Boyd A Visit from Saint Nicholas Facsimile, St Nicholas Center Collection

1862 F. O. C. Darley A Visit from Saint Nicholas St Nicholas Center Collection

ca 1869 Thomas Nast Santa Claus and his Works First red suit for a Nast Santa St Nicholas Center Collection

1881 Thomas Nast Harper's Weekly January 1, 1881 Val Berryman Collection

Other artists and writers continued the change to an elf-like St. Nicholas, "Sancte Claus," or "Santa Claus," unlike the stately European bishop. In 1863, during the Civil War, political cartoonist Thomas Nast began a series of annual black-and-white drawings in Harper's Weekly, based on the descriptions found in the poem and Washington Irving's work. These drawings established a rotund Santa with flowing beard, fur garments, and an omnipresent clay pipe. Nast's Santa supported the Union and President Lincoln believed this contributed to the Union troops' success by demoralizing Confederate soldiers. As Nast drew Santas until 1886, his work had considerable influence in forming the American Santa Claus. Along with appearance changes, the saint's name shifted to Santa Claus—a natural phonetic alteration from the German Sankt Niklaus.

1905 Carl Stetson Crawford St. Nicholas for Young Folks Vol. XXXIII, No. 2 St Nicholas Center Collection

1908 E. Boyd Smith Santa Claus and All About Him

1922 Norman Rockwell Saturday Evening Post December 2, 1922 Michigan State University Museum Used by permission

1925 N. C. Wyeth Old Kris The Country Gentleman Print: St Nicholas Center Collection

1925 J. C. Leyendecker Saturday Evening Post December 26, 1925 Michigan State University Museum Used by permission

1931 Haddon Sundblom First Coca-Cola Santa Permission courtesy of the Coca-Cola Company

1939 Norman Rockwell Saturday Evening Post December 16, 1939 Print: St Nicholas Center Collection

1955 Haddon Sundblom Time December 12, 1955 St Nicholas Center Collection

Nast Santa, Bishop Nicholas, Coke Santa, illustration by Renee Graef, A Special Place for Santa Roman, Inc., 1991. Permission pending.

It's been a long journey from the Fourth Century Bishop of Myra, St. Nicholas, who showed his devotion to God in extraordinary kindness and generosity to those in need, to America's jolly Santa Claus, whose largesse often supplies luxuries to the affluent. However, if you peel back the accretions, he is still Nicholas, Bishop of Myra, whose caring surprises continue to model true giving and faithfulness.

There is growing interest in reclaiming the original saint in the United States to help restore a spiritual dimension to this festive time. For indeed, St. Nicholas, lover of the poor and patron saint of children, is a model of how Christians are meant to live. A bishop, Nicholas put Jesus Christ at the center of his life, his ministry, his entire existence. Families, churches, and schools are embracing true St Nicholas traditions as one way to claim the true center of Christmas—the birth of Jesus. Such a focus helps restore balance to increasingly materialistic and stress-filled Advent and Christmas seasons.

How St. Nicholas Became Santa Claus: One Theory
An interview with Jeremy Seal, author of Nicholas: the Epic Journey from Saint to Santa Claus

St. Nicholas and American Christmas Customs
Which American holiday traditions reflect distinctive St. Nicholas characteristics?

Knickerbocker Santa Claus
Scholar Charles W. Jones recounts the evidence telling how Santa Claus was created in 19th century New York

Links
NPR: The Story of St. Nicholas an interview with Jeremy Seal by Renee Montagne, Morning Edition, December 23, 2005
How Santa Saved N.Y. by Michael Grady, Tribune columnist, East Valley Tribune, Phoenix, December 15, 2007. A good summary of how Christmas changed and Santa Claus came to be in the 19th century.

Flipping image: Luca Brühart, Musée d'art et d'histoire, Fribourg, Switzerland. Used by permission.

Bowler, Gerry, Santa Claus: A Biography McClelland & Stewart Ltd, Toronto, 2005
Carefully researched account uses history, literature, advertising, and art to show development of the American Santa; primarily about Santa

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