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Get Sleepy: Sleep meditation and stories
The Sleepy History of Santa Claus
01:03:50
Narrated by Thomas. Take a magical journey through the history of Santa Claus, from the legacy of the bishop of Turkey to the commercial success of the jolly man with flying reindeer.
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Welcome to Get Sleepy, where we listen, we relax, and we get sleepy. I'm your host, Thomas. Thank you for tuning in. I am so excited to share tonight's Sleepy History with you. It's one of my recent favorites that I've recorded and I'm sure you're going to love it too, especially if some of the traditions reflect those that you enjoyed as a child. It was beautifully written by Alicia Stephan. And don't forget if you love our history episodes here, we've just launched a brand new podcast dedicated to these types of stories. It's called Sleepy History and you can find it in all the usual podcast apps by simply searching Sleepy History. I'll put some links to it in the show notes too. Now see if you recognize these famous lines I'm about to read. Twas the night before Christmas when all through the house not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, in hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there. So begins a visit from St. Nicholas, one of the most famous poems of the festive season. Tonight we'll uncover the details of how Santa Claus became the recognizable superstar of Christmas who transcends nationalities and religions in the modern world. So make sure you're nice and snug in your bed, feeling your body relax into the comforting support of your matt and just feel that connection between your body and the bed as well as your head and the pillow. Let it ground you in the here and now. Breathe gently and steadily, noticing the touch points of your body on the bed and where the body moves with the breath as you allow thoughts of the day to come and then go gradually fading as your body and mind deepen their awareness in the here and now. Perhaps you'd like to cast your mind back to the magic of your childhood days and the feelings of joyful anticipation that the festive season may well have brought you. Maybe you remember expecting a visit from the charming gift bringing character we'll be discussing tonight. Maybe your traditions were a little different, but whatever the case, allow any sense of warming nostalgia comfort you at this time, knowing that childhood joy is still there somewhere within you and it always will be, no matter how old you get. As you continue to relax into bed, simply follow my voice and the storied tale of a jolly bearded man known by many different names across the world. This is where our story begins. Picture yourself in a cozy firelit room. You are little, still small enough to believe in magic, and tonight is the most dazzling moment of the Christmas season. With marvelous anticipation, you await the clandestine arrival of Santa, who will shower you with gifts while you sleep, silently departing with his team of trusty reindeer. When he is done. It's a good night for the sleigh, you think to yourself as you watch the snow drift down outside the window. On the other side of the glass there is a winter wonderland. But in here, a bubble of warmth surrounds you, filled with wonderful smells of things you can't wait to eat. There are pies, chocolates and bright candy canes to be enjoyed. Perhaps there are cheerful model trains circling a Christmas tree and your favourite festive songs playing nearby. The grown ups insist it is time for bed. You agree reluctantly, knowing that only sleeping children receive their visit from Santa. But first you make sure to leave him a generous plate of cookies and some milk. And of course, there must be a carrot for his reindeer. In the morning you'll be delighted to find that plate half consumed. The glass will be empty and the carrot will be partially eaten. More importantly, your tree will be laden with gifts and your stockings will be stuffed to the brim with the gifts that good children have been led to expect on Christmas Day. After all, only very naughty children will receive a lump of coal. You drift to sleep, imagining that you hear sleigh bells. Before you know it, Santa will have come and gone. In that last waking moment of the evening. You are so very happy. If you didn't grow up celebrating Christmas, this may not be the familiar scene for you, but even if you did, parts of it may be different to your own experiences. There may well have been no white Christmas where you lived, or you may have been expecting Father Christmas instead. For example, you may think of the red cloaked man as St. Nicholas and expected to also be visited by the Christ Child. Perhaps you've left the jolly man sherry instead of milk or mince pies instead of cookies. But the image of the bearded, warmly dressed man is fairly ubiquitous and the sentiments are the same. It's a tradition shared by many across the globe. It's actually not hard to pinpoint the origins of Santa Claus as we know him. Most scholars agree that his roots can be clearly traced back to St. Nicholas. Although you might not have realized such a warmly clad figure with a sleigh originally came from Turkey. Born around 280 CE, the bishop who would become the Catholic St Nicholas was said to have been a generous man who travelled around the country, tending to the sick and the poor and giving away all his inherited wealth in the process. Thanks to various heroic and generous acts, he became known as the protector of many vulnerable people, especially children. Eventually, the church established the anniversary of his death as the feast Day of St Nicholas, to take place each year on December 6th. There is some debate about the actual resting place of St. Nicholas, but many historians believe that his remains were stolen by Italian sailors in the 11th century and taken to the Basilica di San Nicola on the southeast coast of Italy. In the 1950s, a facial anthropologist named Caroline Wilkinson used technology to reconstruct his image. Naturally, some assumptions were necessary. For example, she deduced that he had Mediterranean features such as olive skin and brown eyes. There is also evidence that at some point the good saint suffered a broken nose. But the picture that emerged in the forensic reconstruction of the real Saint Nick is a far cry from the Santa we know today. In short, he was probably a lean man with grey hair and a fiery nature. After all, he was a defender of the Christian faith at a time when Roman rulers were against his religion. Without knowing any of these things about him, however, the people of the earlier centuries celebrated his legacy and simply filled in the blanks. His reputation as a patron saint of children made him a natural fit to be both a model of discipline and a bringer of great rewards for children who acted properly. By the Renaissance, St. Nicholas was enormously popular across Europe. Representations of him were necessarily creative, since nobody had seen him for hundreds of years, it made sense for artists to portray him a little like other European deities of a fatherly nature, such as the Roman God Saturn or the Norse God Odin. As such, he acquired a white beard and some fanciful magic powers, like the ability to fly. Due to these details, St. Nicholas evolved as a figure of fatherly benevolence, with a comforting but strong fatherly appearance. In the 1500s, St Nicholas was challenged by the onset of the Protestant Reformation. Influential figures such as Martin Luther were keen to draw public attention away from the celebration of the Catholic saints. They were aware, however, of the importance of the December 6th gift giving tradition. Sensing perhaps that squashing it would erode their popularity, they instead moved to shift the gift giving from December 6 to the holiday of Christmas. In doing so, they were able to assert that the gift giving figure to celebrate was the Christ Child, known in Germany as Christkind. A historian named Jerry Boehler had some insightful and humorous observations about the challenges of transferring St. Nick's duties to the baby Jesus. In an interview with National Geographic magazine on the topic of Santa Claus, he pointed out that the Christ Child was not an easy replacement for the burly, bearded man who had become dear to the hearts of so many Europeans. For one thing, as Boaler puts it, the infant's carrying capacity is very limited. The logistical difficulty would be obvious to anyone nowadays. Even those of us who may have spent time in Germany, for example, where the Christkind is celebrated, will have also seen St Nick handing out presents. But Boaler adds that there is a second role that the infant Jesus can't perform, and that's the role of disciplinarian. Not to say that St. Nicholas was a threatening figure, but he was known to carry a switch at times. Even in our kinder, gentler era. Santa Claus promises gifts to good children, whereas those who are naughty are taught to be concerned that they may only receive a lump of coal. Once the Christ Child became the bringer of gifts, he also needed a sidekick who could carry things and enforce good behaviour. Because of that, stern pagan characters such as Ruklaus, which means rough Nicholas, Aschenclass, which means ashy Nicholas, or Pudsnickel, which means furry Nicholas, stayed around as part of the Christmas tradition. In effect, two holiday characters had to do the work formally performed by one. While our later version of Santa Claus would be much kinder and gentler than these fellows, the imagery around them would eventually influence the jolly man we know now. Furthermore, Protestant efforts to snuff out St. Nick were never completely successful. For example, people in the Netherlands especially were stubborn about keeping him around. It was the Dutch who were eventually largely responsible for importing his character to the New World. England was one place where a movement away from St. Nicholas didn't keep merrymakers from their beloved bearded character. Father Christmas bore many of the characteristics of St. Nick and his figure can be found as far back as the court of Henry viii. There he was represented as a party loving large man, generally wearing green or scarlet robes lined with fur. Although he wasn't associated with gift giving until the Victorian period, he was strongly connected to joyful feasting and messages of peace. Additionally, he was known to drink a cup of wine or two. When the Victorian era recharacterized Christmas as a family centric holiday, Father Christmas also took on the popular gift giving role of the earlier St. Nicholas. For many modern readers, he is possibly best represented by Charles Dickens as the ghost of Christmas Present in the famous novel A Christmas Carol. Both Dickens words in the book and the original illustration of the ghost by John Leach were pivotal in maintaining popular opinion about his appearance and his personality. To trace the continuing evolution of Santa Claus, however, it is necessary to back up just a little bit and hop across the pond to what would become the United States. St. Nicholas appears to have landed on those shores along with some of his greatest fans, the Dutch in the late 18th century. History.com cites newspaper articles from 1773 and 74 that mentions some of those immigrant families honoring St. Nicholas Day. Their name for him was Sinterklaas. Up until the early 1800s, celebration of Christmas itself was not very robust on American shores. The Puritans were not holiday celebrants, and those colonists who did make merry during Christmas tended to keep the season as a somewhat rowdy and adult focused party. It wasn't until the 19th century that the holiday and Sinterklaas became more established, merging together into a more popular, widespread tradition. In 1804, a member of the New York Historical Society distributed woodcuts at their annual meeting of the season. The engravings the guests received featured Sinterklaas hanging stockings, gifts of toys and fruit, and a fireplace. Those settings are trappings of Santa Claus that would prove to be enduring, shaping the Christmas imagery we know today. Now, if you've listened to some of our Halloween stories, it's possible you're already familiar with the writer Washington Irving. He is well known for having penned one of the most iconic Halloween stories of all time, called the Legend of Sleepy Hollow. It may surprise you to know that Irving has also played a role in The Evolution of Santa Claus in 1809, Irving published a satirical history of New York under the pseudonym Diedrich Knickerbocker. In this light hearted literary parody, he called St. Nicholas the patron saint of the city. Now generally known as the Knickerbocker History of New York. This work is considered to have been an early description of what would become our modern Christmas traditions. Despite this coalescence of Santa Claus imagery, the figure still took on many different forms as he transitioned from St Nicholas to the recognizable figure that would come later. Scholars relate, seeing him pictured as a mischievous fellow wearing a blue tricorn hat, a red waistcoat and yellow stockings, for example. He's also reportedly been shown as a man wearing a broad brimmed hat and a pair of Flemish hose. Jerry Boehler, the aforementioned Santa historian, said that he remembered seeing one illustration where Santa looked exactly like George Washington and was riding a broom. However, Boaler points to the year 1821 in which an anonymous poem called the Children's Friend was published. Its drawings featured a Germanic looking figure in furs who brought gifts, but also carried a birch rod, presumably for discipline. This figure drove a wagon pulled by one reindeer, but it was really the year 1822 that offered a major building block in the image of Santa as we know him today. For what Christmas loving youngster has not grown up with the words Twas the night before Christmas Twas the night before Christmas when all through the house not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. The stockings were hung by the chimney with care in hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there. The children were nestled all snug in their beds, while visions of sugar plums danced in their heads. These words not only captured the magic of the perfect Christmas Eve, but they were also largely responsible for creating the likeness of Santa Claus. Although it was originally written for his own children, a poem first known as a visit from St. Nicholas was authored by a wealthy scholar, real estate developer and philanthropist named Clement Clark Moore. He wrote it privately for his own children, but a year later it was anonymously published in the upstate New York paper the Troy Sentinel. The poem became an instant classic and was republished annually, finally being attributed to more some 14 years later. Even then, More denied it for decades, finally acknowledging his authorship in 1844. What is remarkable about a visit from St Nicholas is the way in which it verbally illustrates the Santa Claus we know today. It goes like this. 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. His eyes, how they twinkled. His dimples, how merry. His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry, his droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow, and the beard of his chin was as white as the snow. The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth, and the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath. He had a broad face and a little round belly that shook when he laughed like a bowlful of jelly. He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf, and I laughed when I saw him in spite of myself. Not only did it establish him in the clothing we now imagine, but it enshrined him as a jolly man rather than a strict disciplinarian. Furthermore, who would our modern Santa be without his eight reindeer? Entirely on his own, Moore established Santa's entire team, naming them one by one. On Dasher, on Dancer, on Prancer and Vixen, on Comet and Cupid, on Donner and Blitzen, the poem says. The addition of Rudolph many years later would be the finishing touch, and one would like to think that more might approve. Christmas grew in popularity as a major family holiday from that point on, and the status of its mascot increased along with it. By the 1840s, newspapers began featuring holiday sections with prominent images of this newly popular Santa Claus as he was described in Moore's poetry. And of course, capitalism cashed in on the opportunity to fly high on Santa's success. In 1841, thousands of children showed up at a store in Philadelphia to view a life size Santa Claus model. The event was a hint of the importance shopping mall Santas would eventually hold in American culture. Children were eager to see the jolly man himself. This establishment of the trappings of Christmas is supported by an article published in England in 1853. It describes American Christmas customs to a British audience and included such traditions as the hanging of stockings. More importantly, in the evolution of Santa, it cited the appearance of a fabulous personage whose name varied by region, including Kris Krinkle, St. Nicholas or Santa Claus. Stepping up to join Clement Clark Moore as a Santa influencer, a political cartoonist named Thomas Nasty further established the new look of Santa Claus. In the early 1880s. This was when he drew upon Moore's charming description to draw several likenesses that are now easily recognizable by modern audiences. His images of a rotund, cheerful man with a white beard and a bag of gifts appeared in the magazine Harper's Weekly. But Nast took Santa Law a Step further, also picturing him at a workshop in the North Pole. He imagined his helpers as elves and supplied him with the venerable and enduring Mrs. Claus to be his partner. In this way, Thomas Nast became as important in the history of Santa Claus as the man who set the stage with poetry. Interest in this version of Santa Claus grew in art and literature circles. Notably, author L. Frank Baum of Wizard of Oz fame published a book in 1902 called the Life and Adventures of Santa Claus. The tale imagined a fanciful origin story for the jolly character. Most notable for modern listeners, however, was his plot point that Santa lived in a place called the Laughing Valley of Ohaho and that while delivering gifts, he would go down chimneys of homes where he was faced with a locked door. Other portions of the tale didn't survive as typical Santa back story, however. The book was produced in a truncated version as a popular stop motion animation TV special. Many years later in 1985, as the image of Santa Claus solidified at the turn of the 20th century, his European counterparts began to sync up with the new friendly image. Father Christmas reigns supreme over the holiday in Great Britain, while Pere Noel was seen in France. The benevolent bearded man eclipsed the stern discipline bringers of the earlier pagan traditions as Christmas continued to gain a more family friendly personality. Of course, this trend was not universal in Europe. Stalin was anxious to stamp out religious observances, so he shifted focus to a character named Grandfather Frost, establishing New Year as the gift bringing holiday of choice in the Soviet Union. 1912 is the year that Santa Claus first appeared on film. He was played by a well known actor named Leadom Bantok, who was also the writer. Based on a recent stage play, the silent movie shows a little girl falling asleep and dreaming that she has been whisked away to Santa's workshop. While later films have since become much more famously associated with Santa, this early gem was a pioneer in helping audiences conceptualize Santa's workshop. The scene showing his home base is a detail that has stayed with us for generations. We have Ledum Bantock to thank for that. 1924 marks a pivotal year in Santa's history simply because he got his own float in the very first Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City. For Americans, this inaugural event of the holiday season has proven to be a lasting and enormously popular spectacle. Its enduring popularity was perhaps forever cemented in the 1947 smash hit movie Miracle on 34th street in which the existence of Santa Claus was proven in a court of law. The movie won three Academy Awards and has gone down in history as a classic. But before we jump ahead to the 1940s, there's one more important Santa topic to discuss. Nowadays, there is a somewhat incorrect assumption that our version of Santa Claus was established by the marketers at Coca Cola, who prominently featured Santa sporting their trademark red and white colours in 1930. While it's true that he starred in their ads, they were not the first soft drink company to use Santa as a mascot. Previously, he'd been featured in some ads by White Rock Beverages, first for a mineral water in 1915 and then for mixers in the 1920s. We can see that the red cloaked Santa was around for decades if we trace the history in print. For example, Puck magazine was showing him in red and white in the early 20th century, actually featuring him dressed that way on the COVID in 1905. And naturally, the artist Thomas Nast had started his costume Trend years before. 1937 was a notable year for our jolly friend as Santa began to show up in person, more and more appearing in parades and stores. Charles W. Howard established the oldest continuously run Santa school in the world. According to the school's current website, Mr. Howard established the institution after becoming tired of seeing unkempt, unprofessional centres at festive events. His first class at the Santa School had only three students, but the business has endured for many decades now. Luckily, it has been passed on to new leadership and even successfully relocated from New York to Michigan. Now finally moving ahead to the era of Miracle on 34th Street, American troops were partially responsible for spreading Santa around Europe in the immediate aftermath of World War II. At that time, his jolly spirit was a perfect fit for the idea of American goodwill as the troops helped restore infrastructure in the aftermath of the conflict. In December of 1955, the Sears Roebuck department store published an ad in a Colorado newspaper featuring a direct phone line to Santa. At least that was the intention. When the ad appeared in print, the telephone number had a typo. Instead of reaching Santa, the first child to attempt the call reached a colonel named Harry Shoop, who was manning the secure phone at the United States Continental Air Defense, now known as norad, which stands for North American Aerospace Defense Command. At first, the Colonel was terse, believing he was being pranked on a secure line. On the other hand, when the child became upset, he quickly shifted to pretending he was Santa. A short conversation with the child's mother revealed the error, but the phone number was out there and more children began calling. Colonel Shoop fielded the calls as best he could. Eventually Assigning multiple airmen to play Santa as well. Then, on Christmas Eve, the colonel called a local radio station and reported a sighting of Santa's sleigh. That was when the now beloved NORAD Santa Tracker was born. While it's not the only Santa Tracker to exist, it's certainly one of the most enduring. Today, the site for the Santa Tracker receives millions of visits each holiday, making Santa's trip around the world all the more real for legions of children who watch it with excitement on Christmas Eve. The mid-50s were eventful in the history of Santa for another reason. In 1956, a man named George Melecrino revived the idea of Mrs. Santa Claus in a popular song. A few years later, an author named Phyllis McGinley further established her role by publishing a book called How Mrs. Santa Claus Saved Christmas with the concerted effort of all the imaginative people who created Santa's mode of transportation, his home workshop, his helpers and his elves. Santa Claus as we now know him was solidly in place by the time the 1960s dawned and not much has changed about him since. The kids of the 60s and 70s were the first to see television shows about Santa and his reindeer that became instant classics. And as the decades continued, the movie industry made Santa a fixture featuring him in every possible type of film. He's such a star that numerous countries have claimed to be the home of his workshop at the North Pole. According to the publication the Canada Post, his base of operation lies in their territory within the postal code HOHOHO. Or you could say HO HO HO. Playing up this theory, in 2008, the Canadian Minister of immigration and Multiculturalism awarded him Canadian citizenship, declaring he had the automatic right to re enter Canada once his trip around the world is complete. The town of North Pole, Alaska bears the motto where the spirit of Christmas lives year round and is home to the Santa Claus house. There people can take photos with the man himself and even post letters with an official North Pole postmark and Santa seal. Norway, Greenland and Finland are among the countries who also lay claim to Santa's jolly home base. The jury is still out on which one is correct. Perhaps he spends a little bit of time at all of them. In the modern Santa loving world, his cheerful image continues to be a huge part of Christmas, which is now celebrated by many people who have no religious ties to the holiday world. Records are available for the most curious Santa related goals, such as the largest collection of memorabilia, the longest serving Santa impersonator, and the largest gathering of Santas. Although he offers a vague warning about lumps of coal for naughty children. His role as disciplinarian has become somewhat lost in the annals of history. Like the Father Christmas of old, he is now mainly a bringer of joy to children and adults alike. The modern spirit of Santa is well represented in a playful 1950s tune called man with the Bag, which was popularized by singer K. Starr. Full of exciting predictions about his arrival, the song sums up the enthusiasm for Santa with the final verse, which encapsulates the happy togetherness he promises. The lyrics say he'll make this December the one you'll remember the best and the merriest you ever did have. Everybody's waiting. They are all congregating, waiting for the man with the bag. The Santa Claus we all love today was shaped partly by the winds of change and partly by the imagination of artists. So this Christmas Eve, whether you celebrate the holiday or not, you might log in to the NORAD Santa Tracker or perhaps read aloud those famous words of the authors who envisioned the man because somewhere the generous and gift giving spirit behind the visitor in the red suit is there for you. Somewhere the spirit of St. Nick is waiting to make your life just a little bit more magical and to bring the wonder of childhood back to your dreams. If you listen carefully enough, you might just hear sleigh bells. We are wishing a warm and cozy festive season to all of Santa's fans tonight.