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Here comes Santa Claus
Here comes Santa Claus
Lied on Santa Claus sleigh
Hand you stuff in, set your fire
Cause Santa Claus comes tonight.

We borrow the Christmas tree form Germany and the Christmas card from England. But one Christmas icon was developed right here in America---Santa Claus.

Long before Santa, however, there was Saint Nicholas, a great orthodox bishop who became one of the most popular saints of the Middle Ages. On December 6, Saint Nicholas Day, good children walked to gifts form the kindly Saint/. Bad children sobbed away with nothing.

In Holland he was known as Santa Claus. And when the Dutch came to this country, they brought tails of their gift-giving Nicholas with them. This quaint customs caught the imagination of Clement Clark Moore, a well-heeled episcopal minister in New York City. In 1822, Moore wrote a poem for his children about a good natured saint who came down the chimney on Christmas Eve.

It was the night before Christmas, and all through the house not a creature was staring, not even a mouse. The stockings were hung by the chimney with care in hopes that Saint Nicholas would soon be there.

Moore dreamed up dashier dancer and the rest of the reindeer along with Santa’s entrance through the chimney. But at first, he was embarrassed by the poem. He worried it was too frivolous for a man of the church.

Clement Moore was a minister, here a minister, who should be on the other side, is promoting a secular Christmas with reindeer and all the rest of it. But there was no mention in the poem that the day was religious.


And I guess why—He didn’t reveal who he was.
With the beginning he wasn’t really well worshiped.

Moor soon owned up to the poem when it became clear that every child in America were scanning horizon for reindeer on Christmas Eve. Less clear was what exactly this Santa Claus looked like. At first, Santa came in all shapes and sizes. A pagan sorcerer, a frightening clown, even a drunkard on a turkey-driven sleigh. Then, in 1863, Thomas Nester, the cartoonist for Harpers Weekly ,settled the matter once and for all with his version of the Christmas saint. Nester Santa was rounder and jollier than his austere Catholic cousin. He looked in fact, like a man of his times. A man who would fit right in with the rotund bewhiskered robber barons of the late 19th century. But Santa was a robber baron in reverse.

Instead of taking from the less fortunate, he gave to those less fortunate. He gave to people regardless of whether they’ve done something or not. In other words, he gave to children. Instead of gathering together wealth, he gets rid of wealth, and does it yearly.