Our modern American idea of Santa Claus didn't come about until 1822, when an American named Clement Clarke Moore wrote "The Night Before Christmas"--a poem about a visit from St. Nick. He invented St. Nick's physical appearance and personality, the idea that Santa travels on Christmas Eve in a sleigh pulled by eight reindeer, and that he comes down the chimney, puts toys in stockings, and then goes back to the North Pole.

This poem was the first to describe St. Nick as jolly and fat: "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 on his chin was as white as the snow... He had a broad face, a little round belly, That shook when he laughed, like a bowl of jelly..."

Political cartoonist Thomas Nast drew a version of St. Nicholas for Harper's Illustrated Weekly nearly forty years later that begins to look like our modern Santa Claus.

But it took Coca-Cola to come up with Santa in the bright red suit.

When Coca-Cola first started in the late 1800s, the purpose of the beverage was medicinal. By the 1930, sales were slowing and Coca-Cola needed a new marketing angle. In 1931, Coca-Cola changed its target audience from the adult who needed a quick pick-me-up to the whole family who needed an emotional lift. And thus we have the famous advertisement of Santa in the red suit, bringing cheer and joy to the world with a bottle of Coca-Cola. This campaign was so successful that Coca-Cola patented the bright red color used for Coca-Cola packaging and Santa's suit. And ever since, when we see that Coca-Cola red, we--consciously or unconsciously--associate the soft drink with Santa and the joy of Christmas.

In our consumer world, Santa is portrayed to children as the source and provider of all their material wishes. Indeed, Santa is a salesman--every year millions of children line up in department stores to tell Santa what they want for Christmas, and retailers expect parents to rush to purchase those wishes.

But Santa is more than an advertising icon--his roots lie in the generosity of Saint Nicholas.

St. Nicholas

Saint Nicholas was an actual person who, in the first part of the fourth century, was the bishop of Myra, a city near the coast of what is now Turkey.

Nicholas was not recluse vowed to poverty. His father was a wealthy merchant. Both his parents died when he was a young man, leaving him with a generous inheritance. His determination to devote his riches to works of charity made him an earthly representative of That From Which All Gifts Come.

Though he gave many gifts, his legend comes from a particular gift to three sisters.

It was the custom at that time for fathers to pay a dowry for the marriage of their daughter. A nobleman with three daughters had lost all his money. Because of his poverty, the daughters could not find husbands, so the father decided to sell them into prostitution. This predicament came to the attention of Nicholas, who recognized it as a perfect opportunity to put his inheritance to good use.

Bishop Nicholas was a shy man and did not like to give money directly, so he tossed a bag of gold into the house at night through an open window as a dowry for the first daughter. Later, he provided the same for the second daughter. It has been said that when it was time for the third daughter to marry, Bishop Nicholas climbed on the roof and dropped the bag of gold down the chimney where it landed in a stocking hung to dry, which gave us our tradition of hanging Christmas stockings. The poor nobleman was keeping watch for the generous benefactor and saw the bishop drop the last bag of gold into the house. Nicholas begged the father to keep the secret, but, of course, the news spread throughout the town and beyond.

And so, Nicholas became known for his love of children and his generosity.

Generosity

When we associate Santa Claus solely with mass consumerism, we miss that Santa is our modern symbol of the universal virtue of generosity. Through receiving Santa's gifts, we experience generosity. And through being Santa, we become the bearers of generosity.

Generosity is the readiness and willingness to give of one's self and one's resources to benefit others, and to give liberally, freely, abundantly, plentifully and joyfully. It is the natural outpouring of a feeling of being full to overflowing with abundance, with the confidence that there is always enough in this world for all and that we can freely give because we can also receive.

Giving generously does not necessarily need to translate into an enormous pile of material gifts. We can be generous with our money to be "the angel" that provides for someone in need. We can be generous with our time to help those who need physical assistance--which could range from raking leaves or shoveling snow to making soup to taking a friend's child shopping for secret holiday gifts... And, especially, we can be generous with our love, which costs nothing, is very healthful, has a beneficial environmental impact, and increases in quantity the more we give it away.

Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus

My favorite description of the spirit of Saint Nicholas appeared on the Editorial Page of the New York Sun in 1897. In response to the question "Is there a Santa Claus?" from young Virginia O'Hanlon, Editor Francis P. Church, son of a Baptist minister, wrote the following:

...Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.

He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy...

Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see...Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world... there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived could tear apart. Only faith, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Santa Claus? Thank God he lives and lives forever...

The spirit of Saint Nicholas is alive and well and lives on in each of us whenever we are generous--generous with ourselves and generous with each other, generous with our love and goodwill and generous with our material resources. Saint Nicholas lives when we express our best selves.

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