Ever wondered how the jolly Santa Claus became a Christmas icon, blending ancient legends with modern myths? Dive into this eye-opening teaching and uncover the fascinating evolution of Santa Claus through a Christian lens that reveals the God Honest origins behind the holiday idol.

We dig beneath the surface to reveal how centuries of myth, culture, and faith have intertwined to shape what many celebrate each year without question. You’ll discover how this cheerful holiday icon evolved from Saint Nicholas into the red-suited symbol of modern consumerism. As we explore the history of Santa Claus you’ll gain essential education on how pagan traditions and commercial influences shaped this cultural phenomenon.

#EvolutionOfSanta #HistoricalFacts #SantaClausHistory #OriginOfSantaClaus #ChristmasHistory #ChristianEducation #TruthAboutSanta #GodHonestTruth

Transcript

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Teaching Introduction

The jolly figure you know and love harbors a past shrouded in mist and tradition. Have you ever wondered how the St. Nicholas evolved into the Santa Claus of today? Well, I’m here to tell you that the picture that you hold of Santa Claus is incomplete, my friend. The truth about his history will shock your understanding of this season.

In this teaching, we’re pulling back the curtain on the history of Santa Claus. The truth behind this jolly icon will surprise you, challenge what you’ve always believed, and open your eyes to a history far deeper than a red suit and reindeer. This teaching uncovers the real journey of how Santa became the figure that we know today.

So stay with us because the history is more powerful than the myth. Keep watching because your holiday worldview is about to level up.

Video Start

So this teaching or d’var is going to be all about Santa Claus: the origin, the evolution, the history, if you will, of that which we call Santa Claus nowadays. A lot of information coming your way. And if you are listening through an audio podcast, you’re still going to get a lot of information, a lot of good, juicy, educational material in during this teaching, but there’s also a lot of images and visuals that go along with this. So, it’s better this time if you watch on video, but you still get a lot of great stuff if you’re listening through the audio podcast version.

Anyways, now if you would like to get more information than what you receive in this particular audio teaching or video teaching, you can always go to our website at godhonesttruth.com, click on the article post for this particular episode, and there you’ll be able to find the on-demand video. You’ll be able to find the drash slides that you see coming up on your screen here. You also be able to find the notes that we took for this particular episode and the transcript if it so helps you. It’s all right there on one convenient page on godhonesttruth.com. But if you want it even easier, you can go down below in the description and we provided a convenient link there. All you got to do is click on that link down there in the description and that’ll take you directly to the article post on our website and that should be down there whether you’re watching on a video platform or an audio podcasting platform.

Housekeeping

Now before we get started on this particular teaching, there is some housekeeping that we need to go over real quick because this is going to be a rather intense and rather heavy sort of teaching. So, if you’re an adult, you’re going to be probably okay as long as you’re not overly sensitive. But anyways, the content that we’re going to be discussing and presenting visuals of in this particular teaching may not be suitable for young viewers or children. So, if they’re there in your presence, you may want to have them leave so you can watch the teaching first and then decide if it’s okay with them. As always, you do you and your parenting and your children, but I just want to give you a heads-up and a warning ahead of time that some of this stuff—it’s historical information about the evolution of Santa Claus—but not all truth, not all historical information is right and ripe for young viewers.

Sometimes we’re going to be discussing and including in this teaching various things like information on paganism, possible racism involved with the history of Santa Claus. Just wait. Just wait. It’s coming. We’re going to be talk involving American politics as well and so much more going into this. You never thought all that would be involved in Santa Claus, but it is. Hang on. I’m excited about it. I hope you are, too. And also there’s going to be a lot of foreign names that’s going to be presented today. And that just goes along with the history and things that go along with the history of Santa Claus and the evolution of it.

So there’s going to be some words there that are hard to pronounce. And I’m already going to realize that I’m not that good at pronouncing various words, especially foreign words. And I’m probably going to butcher a lot of it. So I want to go ahead and apologize ahead of time for any mispronunciations that may come about during the course of this particular presentation.

Prologue

So starting out, let’s go ahead and begin with a thought experiment. And this is something I want you to keep in mind as we go throughout this particular teaching because I believe it’s going to be important to think about this from the beginning all the way to the end and also deciding on whether or not—well, deciding on what you think about the whole Santa Claus thing. This is the question I want you to think about. When is something or someone no longer what it used to be? Can something ever change into something different?

Now, this is getting into the area of philosophy. I am not a philosopher. Certainly not. So, if you are a philosopher on a professional level, then I am I’m sorry if I butcher any of this philosophical stuff, but this the general viewer, I want you to think about these things. When is something or someone no longer what it used to be? And can something or even someone or the legend of someone change into something completely different that’s completely not what it was to begin with. Keep all that in mind.

Think about this. Here’s an example that’s been given over the years. Uh, think about a ship, an old-timey wooden ship, that kind of ship where it’s made of poles and boards and nails and things like that. And let’s take that ship and we replace the ship piece by piece. And we place one board on the ship. Is it a different ship? And we replace another board and another board and another board until we get to the point where we have replaced every single board and nail and mast and sail and everything on that ship. Nothing is the original piece that was on it when it was first built. Is that a different ship? And this is this is a thought experiment for you yourself. There’s no right or wrong answer here, but just think about that. Would that be a different ship?

Now, some people would say, “Well, yeah, it’s still the same ship because it’s got the same name. It’s got the same look. It’s got the same crew and it’s got the same mission. All that stuff. It’s just the material stuff is replaced. So, it’s still the same ship.” That’s what some people might say. Well, let’s change it up. Let’s say the crew is replaced along with the entire substance of the ship. All the parts are replaced as well. Completely new parts, completely new boards, completely new crew. Is it the same ship?

Add in something else. We change the looks. We give it a new paint job. We put on different colored sails in addition to replacing the crew, replacing all the boards, nails, stuff like that. Then is it still the same ship? We’re getting pretty deep. We might say, well, yeah, still the same ship because let’s say it’s on a trade mission or whatnot. That’s what it does in its life. And it goes from the same port to the same port delivering the same exact stuff. Well, what if we change the mission too? I mean, at what point does it in your opinion, and this is all just for you and your mind to think about those things. In your mind, in your opinion, at what point is that a different ship? What would it take for it to be a completely different ship than when that was first built?

Another example is the example of water. Let’s say we have water and it’s ice, frozen solid. Well, if we melt it and it melts into liquid, is that different or is it still the same thing? Then let’s boil that into steam. Was that something different or is that the same thing? And what constitutes change and change into something different? Again, this is all just something to ask in your mind.

Another example to take into consideration is a caterpillar. And once a caterpillar reaches a certain stage in its life, it cocoons itself in a chrysalis. Now, is that cocooned creature still a caterpillar or is it something different? And then obviously that chrysalis or that cocoon burst into a butterfly. Now, would you consider that to be something different and no longer what it used to be? These are all things to think about.

One more example, wood. Now, wood, if you take and you burn it and you do it in a certain way, you can actually process that wood into what we call charcoal. But, you know, most of the carbon stuff is still there from the original wood. So, is that the same piece of wood? I mean, there’s there’s no right or wrong answer here. That’s for you to answer. It only burns off some of the more um, forget what it is, but the more readily burnable stuff. Anyways, it’s charcoal now, but you take that charcoal or even that wood and you completely burn it up and it’s nothing but smoke and ash now. Is it still the same thing or is it changed into something different? Again, this is all stuff that you just have to ask yourself.

We can go on and on with things like an acorn turning into an oak. At what point is the acorn no longer an acorn and is an oak? That’s is something you got to decide for yourself.

Change, a lot of people—I’ve this is things I gleaned from my brief study in philosophy for this particular episode, but change can occur in, depending on who it is and who you’re talking to. They’re going to define change differently, but basically change is either a change in the form and purpose or the function of something or even someone in this particular case. The change could be a change in substance or matter like the boards on the ship. Or the change could be a change in image and you could change the image and that completely changes it from being one thing to another thing. It just all depends on you.

If you would like to read up more on the philosophy behind change and things like this, you can read on some of those links there and we’ve also got it on the notes at godhonesttruth.com. One thing I found very interesting is this whole concept of the sorites paradox and there they present the conundrum that you’ve got a pile of sand and you take away one grain of sand. Is it still a pile? What constitutes a pile? How many grains of sand do you have to take off before it’s no longer a pile?

Again, going back to the whole concept of change and when does one thing change into another thing that’s completely different than the original thing and what even defines change? What is change? You can read on that too. This gets all into the philosophy of change and things like that. It’s if something interests you, go check it out. But again, I’m not a philosopher. But the thing I want you to keep in mind throughout this entire presentation, this entire teaching, is that when does something or someone change into something completely different than the starting thing or the starting person? Keep that in mind because we’re going to be talking about well pretty much a person for the most part. So in your mind, what would constitute a change where it’s no longer the original person but someone completely and absolutely different?

Nicholas of Myra

So last week we talked about Nicholas of Myra, better known as St. Nicholas. Once again, just for clarification, we here God Honest Truth and me personally, obviously, do not subscribe to the whole concept of saints in heaven. We do not hold to the doctrine that people go to heaven when they die. Right now, the people only go to heaven after the resurrection. During the interim, both the righteous and the unrighteous are unconscious. They’re in Sheol in the earth and tombs and stuff like that. They’re not in heaven. Only Yeshua is in heaven because he ascended into heaven due to him being perfect and spotless, sinless, and was ascended and was exalted by Yahweh the father. So, we do not hold to the concept or doctrine of saints like the Catholics or the Orthodox do or things like that. Just want to get that out of the way and clarify that one more time.

But we will be using the phrase or the term St. Nicholas as that’s how it’s commonly said and commonly referred to. And plus there’s lots of Nicholases throughout history and you just know who it is. We’ve also put in there Nicholas of Myra a lot of times just to refrain from using that whole St. Nicholas, but sometimes we will say the phrase St. Nicholas because it just slips out and sometimes because it’s part of the text. But anyways, just want to clarify you know what we’re talking about now and why we do what we do when it comes to Nicholas of Myra or St. Nicholas.

Anyways, last week we talked about St. Nicholas or Nicholas of Myra and we went over who that was—the actual real historical person. But just to recap and start off this particular teaching, since most people or a lot of people associate Santa Claus with St. Nicholas or they at the very least say that he was the origin of the whole Santa Claus mythos.

Nicholas of Myra was born around 270 of the Common Era or 270 AD. Now he was a very zealous and ardent man for the faith. We know that he was there in alive and bishop during the time of the Diocletian persecution. He was there during the time when Constantine came to power and issued the Edict of Milan granting religious freedom to lots of people but especially Christians. That’s who we’re mostly focused on this teaching and in this ministry. So he was there for the Edict of Milan in 313. He was there during the time of the Council of Nicaea in 325 when the Roman Catholic Church got its start. But as we learned last time, we do not know for certain whether or not he was actually at the Council of Nicaea. And in most likelihood, he wasn’t even there.

With that being said, there’s a myth going around that Nicholas actually slapped or punched Arius, but that’s a lie. That’s just legend. So, don’t believe it. It’s not funny, but it didn’t actually happen. However, he was alive during the time of the Council of Nicaea. And then he died about 343 CE or 343 AD.

Now, why are we specifically pointing out these dates? Well, number one, you go on and show you that the first information that we get about Nicholas of Myra doesn’t come about until about 400 CE. And then only a very small amount of information. That’s probably some of the most reliable information that we have. And the vast majority of the things that are said about Nicholas of Myra come from writings that are hundreds of years later. In fact, it’s not until the 700s that we get most of the information that gets passed around about Nicholas of Myra, the whole things that he did, the miracles he did, stuff like that, like the saving of the three boys that were cut up by a butcher and brined and he brought back to life and put them back together like a jigsaw puzzle or something like that, when he saved his three daughters from prostitution, when he saved the three innocent people from being killed when they were mistaken for other people.

And yes, I’m intentionally pointing out these specific stories because the number three is often involved with the legends about Nicholas of Myra. Keep that in mind because it’s going to come into play later on. Put that down in your notes. If you don’t have notes, you’re going to need them this time. Get a pen, get a piece of paper and write this stuff down so you can refer back to it later on in the d’var. Remember, number three associated with a lot of the legends of Nicholas of Myra. In fact, he wasn’t even rec officially recognized as a saint until about the 9th century. Keep all that in mind, too.

And this just is a little bit information about Nicholas of Myra. Here is some images of Nicholas of Myra. This is important for this particular teaching as well. There in the, if you’re watching on video anyways, on the left you got just a portrait of Nicholas, a drawing which most people have probably seen before. In the middle is an image of him saving the three innocent people from being killed, their heads chopped off or whatnot, grabbing the sword himself to prevent the execution. And there on the right is just another portrait.

Couple things to point out here and to take notice of is that the picture on the right is probably going to be one of the most accurate things. Number one, it’s because it is, well, it doesn’t have a halo. It doesn’t have the sun disk behind him. And the sun disk didn’t actually come into Christian artwork until about the middle of the 4th century. And he was already dead by that point. So, the use of the halo or the use of the sun disk was not brought in to Christianity yet during the time of Nicholas of Myra. Also notice that there’s no miter and there’s no fish hat on his head like he’s presented most times or at least in later depictions of him. And this miter or that fish hat is something that didn’t come into play until about the 10th century. So these are more accurate in that respect as well.

Also notice the color scheme and the beard and the hair and the head and stuff like that. This is all stuff that makes up the actual, or we think of as the actual historical figure or person of Nicholas of Myra. Now, not only in the Catholic, Roman Catholic Church is he venerated and respected, but also in the Orthodox and here is Russian Nicholas of Myra. Usually pretty angry in the Russian depictions. I don’t know why.

Anyways, here is um, these are the images of the Russian version of the icons of Nicholas of Myra. Here you can see it’s a little bit different. He’s got a hat on in the left picture there and it’s not a miter. It’s not a fish hat, but it’s still a hat that’s different from the other ones we saw. And then on the right is another Russian image of Nicholas of Myra. And he’s got the sun disk behind him, which is like we discussed earlier, something that was not in place yet during the time of Nicholas of Myra’s life.

An Uninvited Guest

As we move forward after Nicholas dies, the Roman Empire went through some changes and so did Christianity. Obviously, with the Edict of Milan, when religious freedom was granted to Christians and they weren’t persecuted anymore, they were able to go and spread out a lot more and a lot faster than they had before. And so, they went and they spread out as far as they could. Some reports have the apostles or certain apostles like Timothy going all the way to India. They went all the way up into Ireland. Think of Patrick. They went up into Britain and France and Spain and all over Europe and down into Africa and etc., etc., etc. Right? It spread out all over the place.

Now, for the purposes of our study tonight, we’re going to be focusing on where it spread up into a little country called the Netherlands. And as it spread across Europe and across the world, Christianity took its various doctrines and teachings and quote unquote saints with them. One of the saints obviously they took with them or the story they took with them of this particular saint is Nicholas of Myra. And as this story of Nicholas of Myra went to other countries, other regions, other peoples, unfortunately it got mixed in with a lot of other stories and customs and things like that across Europe.

This whole concept of St. Nicholas is referred to by different things. Now, once we covered way back when in our episode a couple weeks ago on birthdays, that it was common practice back in the day or during those days not to celebrate the birthdays of someone as in the birthday when they were physically born the first time, but rather they celebrated the anniversary of a martyr’s death or a particular prominent figure, the anniversary of their death. The same was done with Nicholas of Myra.

Legend has it or we it’s come down to us that Nicholas of Myra died on the 6th. Keep that in mind, the 6th of December. His day or his saint day as it when he was finally recognized and put up as a saint was his saint day was December 6th. But as the story went across Europe and across the world, these different names, these different customs came across and he’s called different things in different parts of the world. For instance, in Italy and Bari, remember we talked about Bari last time, but in Italy he’s known as San Nicola. In Spain, San Nicolás. Again, I’m going to butcher the pronunciation, so I apologize for this. In Serbia, he’s called Nikolen. And their particular um feast day for St. Nicholas now is December 19th. Why is it December 19th? Because the calendar changed and when he died it was the 6th of December on the Julian calendar. So they tried to hold to that same thing once the calendar changed which somehow became December 19th. And that gets gives me a headache trying to think about this calendar stuff a lot of times. But that’s pretty much the gist of it.

Anyways, various things across cultures and across the world and stuff like that. Various names that they call St. Nicholas by and there’s various customs that go along with the feast day or the celebration of quote unquote St. Nicholas. For instance, in certain parts of the world, they—this is pretty much a theme that goes along with the whole St. Nicholas thing—that if kids are told if they’re good, they’ll get something good on St. Nicholas Day or even now the Christmas Day. But if they’re bad, then it can be various things just like the the good things they receive can vary depending on what part of the world you’re in. And the bad things they receive can vary depending on what part of the world they’re in.

During their study on this, there are certain cultures they tell them that if they’re good, then St. Nicholas will bring you good things, but if you’re bad, then the children are told they will be beaten. Other parts, the children are told they will be abducted by St. Nicholas and his helpers. We’ll get into that in just a minute. They’ll be be abducted by St. Nicholas and his helpers and be taken away for a year and then returned after a year and then they’ll be good boys. I don’t good boys and girls. I don’t know what exactly happens during the interim but they’re supposed to be corrected by when they come back. Another thing or another part of the world they tell children that if they’re bad they will be given switching rods or rods for their parents to switch them with and discipline them with.

There’s various in variations the whole St. Nicholas thing and the veneration or the celebration of this particular Catholic saint. And going back to the whole veneration of saints, this is something that caused an uproar during the Protestant Reformation. Now, once the Protestants got going and the 95 Theses was stapled up and things went into a schism for yet again, the Protestants did not like the whole idea of saints, the veneration of saints, stuff like that. And for good reason. We won’t get into all that, but just say we agree with their rejection of the veneration of saints.

Anyways, they tried to do away with this whole St. Nicholas thing and they got rid of most of the saints and most of the veneration of saints. But this whole St. Nicholas thing kind of stuck around. It was like honey. You get on your skin. You just it’s hard to get rid of. And then you put sand on it and it’s even worse. And that’s what the whole celebration of St. Nicholas was like for some odd reason. I don’t know why but yeah is so to not have a veneration of a saint then various Protestant countries came up with their own kind of way to try to get around it or change it up or something like that.

In Britain in England they come up with this concept of Father Christmas. Now this wasn’t supposed to be St. Nicholas. But yeah, like Shakespeare said, a rose by any other name, right? So, the British come up with Father Christmas, and we’ll get into that in just a moment because that plays into our evolution of Santa Claus.

Now, we’re going with the American understanding and version of Santa Claus. Once the whole notion of St. Nicholas went with the spread of Christianity, it diverged into various threads almost like a an octopus or a family tree branching out and stuff like that. We got these different variations and they done different things. The British done Father Christmas. Other people did something called the Christ Child or the Christkind, which eventually came to be known as Kris Kringle. And this was supposed to be originally at one point it was supposed to be the baby Yeshua going around delivering presents to the good boys and girls. Well, that caused problems. Then it went into like some girl that they would dress up with a crown and stuff every year and that was supposed to be the Christkind. It’s it gets it. Yeah. Anyways, so there’s different branches there, but the branch that leads up to what we’re learning about Santa Claus comes through the St. Nicholas origin and then goes into the Santa Claus derivation. And then you can find that Santa Claus idea in mythology in various parts of the world like Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. For our particular study, we’re going to be focusing on a the branch of St. Nicholas that’s referred to as Sinterklaas and especially that from the Netherlands, the Dutch. So keep all that in mind because the history and that is going to come into play here real shortly.

Anyways, talking about Father Christmas, let’s talk about that real quick. Here are some images of Father Christmas. Here on the left, you’ve got Father Christmas about to disperse something good to child sitting there supposedly an orphan or homeless, something like that. Now check this out on the top center. That is Father Christmas, but he’s holding or wearing a crown or a hat made out of evergreen. Now, if you remember our dendrolatry episode in this series, evergreens are not biblical and the use of trees and shrubs in religious practice is forbidden. It’s for it. It’s something that only pagans have done. go back and check that out for more information. But anyways, he’s wearing that evergreen crown or hat and on his back is a log, a piece of wood. Right. Right. But it’s a specific log. It’s a yule log. Father Christmas is carrying a yule log.

Then down there on the bottom is another image of Father Christmas. Take note of his hat. This is like I said the visual is going to be important here as well as the audible information that you get through your ears. So this hat here you can see how it’s tall and pointy and it’s got a little bit of a wide brim. It’s remember the images we saw of St. Nicholas or Nicholas of Myra, they would not have been wearing hats back during that time that he lived, the historical person lived. And so this is a change in image here. So keep that in mind. But here in the bottom center there, you got that hat. It’s a little bit more wide-brimmed and it’s got that long thin coming to a point uh top on it. Then over there on the right is apparently a depiction of Father Christmas being awakened. And I didn’t get really in depth on this research of Father Christmas, but apparently Father Christmas slept until a certain point and then he was woken up at a certain point in the year. And I don’t know. Anyways, that’s a depiction of Father Christmas being woken up.

And for a time there was a separation between Sinterklaas and Father Christmas. There were two different people. There’s supposed to be two different people. Two different mythos. One in Luxembourg, I’m sorry, one in the Netherlands for versus our study and one in Britain. And they were two different things that were not the same thing. And here is an image depicting that such idea. Here on the left you can see Sinterklaas. This is the depiction of Sinterklaas. And here he’s actually got that miter hat and he’s got that staff and whatnot. But right next to him holding the bag of gifts is Father Christmas. Look familiar? Well, it should. So for a time there was both Sinterklaas and Father Christmas. Nowadays we know them or think of them as the same thing but for a time they weren’t and still nowadays they’re kind of separate but not really. It all gets muddied unfortunately but it doesn’t really matter. Well, I won’t give you my opinion yet but we keep going through the information.

Like I said, as this whole tradition or this mythos of St. Nicholas went throughout the world. It developed into various different things depending on which region or culture you went into.

Now I talked about the helpers or mentioned the helpers real quick a little bit earlier and if the children were good these what the this is what people told their children in these various regions that if they were good they would get something good from Sinterklaas and if they were bad then something bad would be given to them or something bad would be done to them and usually it was by Sinterklaas’ helpers.

One of the helpers that Sinterklaas had, depending on which part of the world you were in, is called the Krampus. No joke. I am not even kidding. And this is a AI image that I done. I’ll admit that there’s an AI image just to show the depiction here. But it was the story goes that if you know you were good then Sinterklaas would bring you something good and if you were bad then the Krampus would come for you. And there are fictional movies about Krampus and the evil and the horror and stuff like that. And you can even see home videos that people take of celebrations of various parts of the world where you see this Sinterklaas figure coming around. But you also see this Krampus figure coming around. People dressed up as Krampus to continue this whole mythos of Sinterklaas and Krampus. It’s very very disturbing. I don’t even know why in the world people would come up with this or how in the world they even thought it could even be remotely related to anything biblical, but they did. And this is just the beginning of things that are disturbing in this particular teaching. Did you ever think that Santa Claus would be disturbing? It’s going to be tonight. Oh, it’s going to be tonight.

Moving on, there are like I said there’s various interpretations and derivations of St. Nicholas and going into Sinterklaas and then there’s various derivations even of Sinterklaas. And Sinterklaas has helpers and not just the Krampus in other parts. And I hope I’m getting this right but in Spain I believe it is Sinterklaas has helpers called Black Pete. Hold on to your socks here because this is Black Pete. No joke. I’m If you’re watching on audio podcast, you’re really missing the impact here. But Black Pete is the helper of Sinterklaas in certain parts of the world. And this is an on the on the two pictures on the left here are actual pictures celebrations of Sinterklaas and the Black Petes or Black Pete. And I I remember correctly this is in Amsterdam in the Netherlands. But you try doing that over here in America and they will literally bring back crucifixion. This is Oh my gosh, that is uh Yeah.

Anyways, the story goes that supposedly at some point in the story of Santa Claus in this particular region that Sinterklaas went and he acquired somehow a more Moorish person to come around with him and serve him and now it is part of the mythos of that particular culture with Sinterklaas. And this is um yeah it’s it’s highly disturbing. I don’t know how other people around the world kind of view this sort of thing, but here in America, oh my goodness, that would there would be another civil war if someone tried to come in and have a celebration like that in a major city and have that kind of dressing up. There would be riots and protests and I don’t even know what. And for once, I would probably say, “Yeah, they’re right to do so because that is just so disturbing.” Oh. Anyways, we’ll have to move on from this. Yeah, this is And we’re not even halfway through yet. This is going to be a long one. It’s going to be a long disturbing one. So, hold on to your socks.

This whole section of this particular teaching is entitled an Uninvited Guest. And we haven’t even got to the Uninvited Guest yet. We’re just talking about the splintering and the branching out of the St. Nicholas mythos went into the Christkind went into the Father Christmas it went into Sinterklaas etc., etc. But as it went, it adopted and brought in various things to some of these particular derivations.

And the Uninvited Guest that we’re talking about is that of Odin. Now here on the right you can see a picture of well an artist depiction of Odin. It’s very well drawn to be, you know, a depiction of someone who’s supposed to be portrayed as a human being. The clarity anyways, but here you’ve got Odin and it’s supposedly dressed as a wanderer to be disguised as a wanderer. You can’t really see the hat that well, but notice the hat there. I can tell you from experience and research that the hat has a wider brim than most and it’s also got a long pointy top to it. It’s probably folded down or flopped down in the back. We’ve already seen that in this teaching from Father Christmas. Keep that in mind.

Anyways, talking about this whole Uninvited Guest and we’re discussing Odin. Now, this comes from the myths of the Norsemen from the Eddas and Sagas. It’s a 2009 publication talking about various Nordic mythology tales, excuse me. Talks about various Nordic mythology tales and the paganism and and gods associated with the Norse and Vikings and whatnot.

Anyways, it says, quote, “The northern skalds or poets whose songs are preserved in the Eddas and Sagas declared that in the beginning, when there was as yet no earth nor sea, nor air, when darkness rested over all, there existed a powerful being called All-Father, whom they dimly conceived as uncreated, as well as unseen, and that whatever he willed came to pass.” Odin, Wodan, or Woden, was the highest and holiest god of the northern races. He was all He was the all-pervading spirit of the universe, the personification of air. Keep that in mind, on one occasion, Odin had disguised himself as a wanderer. The contest of wit immediately began and Vafþrúðnir questioning his guests concerning the horses which carried day and night across the sky. End quote.

But keep that in mind. He is the according to Nordic mythology the personification of air and this particular story is talking about various horses and carrying things across the sky in this particular case carrying day and night across the sky.

That’s just a little bit going on from the Magic of Yule from the warriorlodge.com. quote, “The All-Father is particularly active in Midgard.” Let me stop right there. Midgard, for those of you who don’t know, there were various realms within Nordic mythology. And Midgard is Earth, where we live. Now, there’s other realms as well where the gods lived and where the underworld was or various underworlds. Actually, Midgard is where we live. So when it’s talking about active in Midgard being active here among us going back the All-Father is particularly active in Midgard during Yule, during this period those who provoked the ire of the gods could find themselves caught in bad luck while those whom Odin favored would receive good fortune and gifts. In fact giving gifts was something Odin did often in sagas. Odin would sometimes show up and provide a worthy person with some special item they needed.

The name of two of Santa’s reindeer are Donner and Blitzen, and these translate to Thunder and Lightning, a call back to Odin’s son Thor. Lastly, one of Odin’s most popular titles is All-Father. He is also called Jolnir, translating to Yulfather. End quote. So when the ancient Brits up there in England come up with this idea of what was it? Father Christmas or Christmas father. Where do you think they kind of got that from? You think maybe there was something kind of whispering in their ear or something they were used to already or you know what? It kind of makes sense to me because there was a bunch of Germanic, Celtic, Nordic influence on that entire region on both the Netherlands and on Britain or Britannia as it was once called. So yeah, Odin being called Yule Father and the Brits having Father Christmas that is uh is at the very least a coincidence. We’ll put it that way.

Moving on to some more coincidences with Odin again from the myths of the Norsemen from the Eddas and Sagas. Quote, Odin as wind god was pictured as rushing through mid-air on his eight-footed steed called Sleipnir or Sleepnir end quote. This is very interesting. This is the only eight-footed creature that I know of. It’s keep that in mind the number eight. You probably already figured it out already, but keep that in mind. The number eight and also the number three as we went before. Anyways, Odin would ride on the air through the sky on his eight-footed horse called Sleipnir.

But continuing with this particular vein of thought, Odin’s, and this comes from sonsofviking.com. Quote, Odin’s eight-legged flying horse is named Sleipnir. The original Santa rode on a horse. When going to war, Odin rode on Sleipnir’s back. The Eddic poem Sigrdrífumál mentions Sleipnir having runes cut into his teeth and onto the straps of his sleigh. Magical flying horse also at least at times pulled a sleigh. In snowy Scandinavia, animal chariots were replaced by animal sleds. End quote. And that just makes sense because if you’re in snow covered terrain and it’s extremely rocky around that kind of area and stuff too, a chariot is not going to do that much good. So a sleigh is the obvious choice and snow covered ground. So a sleigh makes sense, but it kind of gives a clue as to where someone else got their particular sleigh. Keep that in mind.

Also in particular variations or derivations of Sinterklaas, the children are told that Sinterklaas rides on a white horse on the tops of houses on the rooftops. That’s Sinterklaas and then would drop stuff down the chimney for the good boys and girls or the bad boys and girls. But it’s just one horse and it’s not flying through the air. So there is that distinction. But that was way back when. Things have changed since then. But just take all this into account and where this information is coming from and where it’s leading into because we’re going to get on all that.

Here is some Let’s take a break for just a moment. This is something I came across as well. And this is the Triple Horn of Odin. And maybe you’ll say bad things about me, but I just thought it was kind of neat. Or at least neatly drawn. Anyways, however, the thing that really kind of stuck out to me was the whole triple part. Think back to the whole all the stories of Nicholas of Myra that we’ve heard about the um a lot of those have the number three involved with them. The three boys who were chopped up by the butcher, the three girls that he saved from prostitution by providing them dowries, the three innocent prisoners that he saved from execution. Three, three, three, three, three. And here’s another three.

But three is something that is very prominent within paganism. And here is an example coming from Nordic pagan paganism. And this is Odin’s Triple Horn. That’s not to say that the number three or the concept of three originated in paganism. I’m just saying that’s something to keep in mind and be aware of. For the purposes of this teaching, keep in mind that three being associated with Nicholas of Myra. And also keep in mind that number eight because all this is going to come to play as we put everything together.

Migration of Myth

But so far, we’ve only been talking about things that’s happened over in the Mediterranean, over in Europe, over in Scandinavia, and places like that. Let’s go ahead and start moving across the pond to America. And when people move from one place to another, they not only move themselves and their family and some of their possessions, they also bring along with them their customs and their culture and their beliefs and things like that. Sinterklaas is no exception.

Now in the early days even before America was America there were various settlements and towns and cities and stuff like that that were established and various colonies. One of the thing one of these towns that was established was something called New Amsterdam. This comes from wikipedia.org. “Amsterdam is the capital and largest city of the kingdom of the Netherlands.” End quote. Again from wikipedia.org. Quote, “New Amsterdam was a 17th century Dutch settlement established at the southern tip of Manhattan Island that served as the seat of the colonial government in New Netherland. In 1664, the English military seized control over New Amsterdam and renamed it New York after the Duke of York.” End quote.

So, you’ve all heard of New York. I hope it doesn’t matter where you are around the world, you’ve probably heard of the city of New York for better or worse. And here on the bottom, you actually had the seal of New Amsterdam. There they established a city, a town, and a seal to go with it and all the trimmings, right?

But a quick summary of the timeline of New Amsterdam is that it was settled and founded in 1624 by Dutch immigrants. It was conquered in 1664. 40 years later it was conquered by the English. Then 9 years later after that in 1673 it was recaptured by the Dutch. But only a year later the Dutch gave it back to the English for whatever reason. I didn’t get into the details of it. I just thought it was rather interesting to see the evolution of New York and where it came from and what it was originally named and all that good stuff. But New York is going to be important or it’s going to be um it’s going to play into our historical information about our study this evening.

Anyways, so far we haven’t really got into the name or the attributes or the look of the image stuff like that of what we know of as Santa Claus. We’ve talked about Sinterklaas. We’ve talked about St. Nicholas. We’ve talked about the Christkind. We talked about Krampus and Black Pete and etc., etc. but we haven’t really said anything about the actual name or word of Santa Claus.

Now Sinter—the derivation of St. Nicholas from the Netherlands Sinter actually means St. Nicholas. That’s where Santa Claus comes from is the whole phrase St. Nicholas where the whole phrase Santa Claus comes from Sinterklaas. That’s as far as the name part of it goes.

Anyways, and the first mention that we can get or that I’ve been able to find comes from a publication in 1821. This comes from wikipedia.org. Quote, and this is a poem or a publication that is published for children. And this is the first mention of the name Santa Claus, but it’s all one word and it’s spelled differently than we spell it today. You can look at the notes on our website or watch the video or the slides here to get the exact spelling. That’s really different than the way we normally know it.

Anyways, from wikipedia.org, or quote, “Old Santeclaus with Much Delight is an anonymous illustrated children’s poem published in New York in 1821. It is the first publication to mention and illustrate Santa Claus’s reindeer and his sleigh, as well as being the first to describe his arrival on Christmas Eve. The accompanying illustrations are the earliest published artistic depictions of a Santa Claus figure. The accompanying engravings are the earliest images of a Santa figure. They show Santa Claus dressed in a red outfit and are the first reference to his being dressed in that color. Santa Claus brings presents only for good children. And in the first illustration, they are explicitly called rewards. Naughty children receive a long black birch rod whose use for parental punishment is endorsed as a command of God.” End quote.

And so here you see some images of that particular publication. And that publication was a poem entitled Old Santeclaus with Much Delight. And it was intended for children and published in 1821. And here are the pictures that were published along with it. And there’s more that goes along with it, but these are the two most relevant, I think, for our particular study this evening.

But there on that top picture, you’ve got this Santa Claus character. He is riding in a sleigh. He’s got a whip and he’s got one reindeer. Again, it’s just one reindeer at this point. And you can see, look at the hat. It’s almost like one of those big tall British soldier hats, almost big tall furry round things. And it’s not anything like we’re used to, but that’s the first mention and pretty much the first imagery we see of this particular character named Santa Claus. It’s not the Santa Claus we know today. Santeclaus. And in the bottom picture, you get a better look at the hat. But instead of the red, he actually has a green upper garment on and it looks to be furry like the furry we’re used to on Santa Claus. But anyways, it’s green. But anyway, this is the first real depiction of Santa Claus and the color red that we see in the whole Santa Claus mythos. But it’s not done yet. And this is the very earliest stages, very earliest images of what would come down to us as Santa Claus.

Going on, we get to a guy named Clement Moore Clark. And this comes from wikipedia.org. Quote, Clement Clarke Moore was an American writer, scholar, and real estate developer. He is best known as author of the Christmas poem, A Visit from St. Nicholas, which first named each of Santa Claus’s reindeer. A Visit from St. Nicholas, which later became widely known by its opening line, was The Night Before Christmas, was first published anonymously in 1823. Moore publicly claimed authorship in 1837. Moore was born on uh July 15th, 1779 in New York City. As first published in the Sentinel, the names of Santa’s last two reindeer in the poem were Dunder and Blixem. Dunder is the correct Dutch word for thunder and the phrase was used by multiple English and American authors with a variety of different spellings in the late 1700s and early 1800s.” End quote.

And this is I found this very very interesting personally any anyways because Clement Clarke Moore is talking about A Visit from St. Nicholas, a poem that he came up with referencing St. Nicholas. Now was Moore a Catholic? Nope. Was he an Eastern Orthodox like in Russia or Greek Orthodox and whatnot? Someone that does all these saints? Nope.

In fact, what I could find out his father Benjamin Moore, you know, the famous painter. No, no, I’m just joking. I don’t think Benjamin Moore or this Benjamin Moore was a painter. Anyways, Clement Clarke Moore, his father was Benjamin Moore. And Benjamin Moore was trained and ordained as a bishop and a priest in the Anglican Church. For those of you who don’t know, the Anglican Church is the state church of Britain. When Britain went Protestant, they didn’t go with Calvinism or Lutheranism or anything like that. They sure didn’t want to be Catholic anymore. So they renamed came up with a another denomination and is referred to as Anglicanism. And there’s a lot of King Henry goes in that story too. I anyways I’ll get off of that. But anyways, Anglican is the official state church of England and that’s what Benjamin Moore was a bishop and priest of. Clement Clarke Moore was also a member of the Anglican Church in America and the Anglican Church in America is called the Episcopal Church. So Clement Clarke Moore who wrote about St. Nicholas was Episcopalian which I found to be rather contradictory from a strict standpoint.

Anyways, if if you know any Protestants nowadays, Baptist, Methodists, stuff like that, they celebrate Christmas and Santa Claus, they’re also celebrating and venerating a saint in particular or maybe not. That’s some question to keep in mind, remember.

But going on this poem, A Visit from St. Nicholas or The Night Before Christmas as it’s more commonly known. Here is the text of that I’m putting up on the screen right now, but I’m not going to read the whole thing because it’s it’s long and it’s already going to be long enough. We’re already an hour into the d’var itself.

But some points to point out here in this particular poem that stand out as contradictory to standard Protestantism and standard understanding of Bible and stuff like that. etc., etc., is number one, the reference to St. Nicholas. Protestants don’t do saints, but for some reason they do do St. Nicholas and Santa Claus.

Also notice if you read through this particular poem that he mentions a miniature sleigh and eight tiny reindeer. Why a miniature sleigh? Why is that so important? Because in this particular the original publication of this poem, Santa Claus or rather Saint Nick, he’s never referred to as Santa Claus in this poem. He’s always referred to as Saint Nick or St. Nicholas, but Saint Nick is a short tiny elf like figure, not a full-grown man. So that’s why it says a miniature sleigh and a tiny reindeer in the original poem. going on.

There is also other things that come into play here. We mentioned Dunder and Blitzen earlier and that is reference to the Dutch words for thunder and lightning, a reference to Thor, the son of Odin.

Some other things that were or some other reindeer that were named inappropriately in my opinion were Comet and well not really Comet but Cupid because Cupid is a pagan god and Vixen. Vixen if for those of you who don’t know is a word that means spirited or fierce woman. A shrew or a woman who is sexually attractive and seductive and leads men astray. That would be Vixen, the name of one of the reindeer in Moore’s poem which was The Night Before Christmas.

But anyways, he continuously refers to this particular character as St. Nicholas, not anything else. He also says that this particular character is dressed all in fur and tarnished with ashes and soot. This is the color description of the character in this particular poem is black, not red, not green, not white, nothing else. He’s tarnished with ashes and soot, which would be a black color. He’s dressed all in fur.

Then we go on, we see in the in these particular poem that this character is smoking a pipe, a tobacco pipe. And it also shows that the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath. And this is supposed to be a children’s poem. I guess it was more accepted back in the day than it is now. But you can get some of the what would you call it? the uh anyways it wouldn’t be accepted nowadays in a children’s poem talking about the main character smoking or whatnot.

And then down below that we have this particular character referenced as a chubby and plump old elf. Again going back to that small miniature sleigh and the tiny reindeer. And now the character is portrayed as an elf. something small and tiny. Think about this as well in the Bible. Where does it talk about elves?

Anyways, the poem ends up with this character St. Nicholas and this particular elf whatnot flying away and he’s exclaiming to everyone, “Happy Christmas to all and to all a good night.” That’s how the poem ends up.

Now, this I take as something he’s saying in a loud voice, which is actually contradictory to what we know of nowadays because nowadays Santa Claus is supposed to be all stealth-like, right? Much more so than even the SEAL teams, but he’s supposed to be all stealth-like. You don’t know he comes and you don’t hear him or anything like that. But this character in the original The Night Before Christmas poem is saying a loud voice and waking everybody up and where everybody can hear him as he flies through the air. It’s just stands in contrast to what we know of nowadays as Santa Claus.

But this poem in particular is referred to as one of the most well-known poems and verses in all of American literature. I’d say they’re about right because this even if you don’t celebrate Christmas, you know what The Night Before Christmas poem is all about and probably what most of the words are. You’ve heard it over and over and over again.

But this particular poem really established a lot of the attributes and the things that we know about our concept of Santa Claus and it really stuck around. And it’s the first time we hear about eight reindeer. Now, some things to keep in mind. Number one, why is there eight? Number two, why are they reindeer? Number three, why is there a sleigh? The reason I ask these particular questions is that this is all supposed to be coming from the origin of Nicholas of Myra. Nicholas of Myra, if you remember from last episode. Myra is in the southern part of what is nowadays Turkey. Nicholas of Myra was Greek. He was over in that Mediterranean region where it’s it’s warm. It’s not snow covered. They don’t need sleighs in Greece. They don’t need sleighs in Turkey. So why would this supposed St. Nicholas, a Greek need a northern animal to pull a northern mode of transportation if it’s all supposed to be St. Nicholas and all coming from this whole Nicholas of Myra thing.

Again, at this point, has it changed from one person to another where it’s completely two different people at this point? That’s something you got to ask yourself and only you can answer for yourself. Moving on, we’re not done yet. We haven’t even got into the American politics yet and we’re about to get into that. This is going to be oh so good.

An American Tale

Santa Claus or the whole mythos of Santa Claus continues to develop. Now in 1823 when this poem came out that was The Night Before Christmas, Christmas wasn’t really celebrated in America. In fact, for a while there in the colonies, especially in Boston, we’ve got evidence that in Boston especially, that Christmas was actually outlawed. You could be fined and punished for celebrating Christmas in particular colonies and parts of America before 1823 anyways. So it really wasn’t celebrated throughout history. And in fact, here in America, it’s less than 200 years old, only maybe 150 years old. In 1823, it certainly wasn’t really celebrated except by a minor few. It wasn’t this big widespread celebration like we know of nowadays.

So in 1823, even though Moore wrote this poem about St. Nicholas and mentioned Christmas, stuff like that, it was wasn’t widespread. Not everyone believed or celebrated Christmas at that point. However, when Santa Claus and Christmas really got its start and traction as being a celebration here in America was during the War of Northern Aggression, otherwise known as the Civil War.

And let me introduce a new person or a new historical figure to you. And his name is Thomas Nast. And here’s a little bit of information about Thomas Nast from wikipedia.org. Quote, Thomas Nast was a German-born American caricaturist and editorial cartoonist often considered to be the father of the American cartoon. Nast was born in military barracks in Landau, Bavaria, Germany. Nast was the last child of Appolonia and Joseph Thomas Nast in 1846. Joseph left Landau. He sent his wife and children to New York City where they arrived in June 1846 and at the end of his enlistment in 1850 he joined them there. Nast Thomas Nast created a modern version of Santa Claus based on the traditional German figures of St. Nicholas or Sinterklaas and Weihnachtsmann and the political symbol of the elephant for the Republican party GOP. Nast’s depiction of iconic characters such as Santa Claus and Uncle Sam are widely credited as forming the basis of popular depictions used today.” End quote.

Now Nast did come up with the imagery that we know of today as Santa Claus. He also come up with the symbol of the elephant for the Republican party. He did not do the donkey for the Democrat party. He did not come up with Uncle Sam. Though he did use those images a lot in his cartoon, so he’s credited with popularizing those images, but he did not create them. Just a tidbit tangent there.

Going back, getting back to our study here about Santa Claus, Nast really established the image or the portrait of Santa Claus that we know today. And we’ve already covered there’s been one drawing or instance of a visual of Santa Claus that’s already been published back in 1821, but that didn’t really stick. The image we got today comes from Thomas Nast and it comes from a political cartoon that he did in favor of the North and against the South and he was trying to put forth the idea that even Santa Claus was for the North and Santa Claus was against the South.

Here in this particular cartoon you see it’s all black and white. So we don’t really know the colors that he was intending but we can kind of guess. For my part, I kind of deduced that his jacket or his upper part or upper garment there. It has the solid color but has stars on it and his pants are striped. And this is supposed to be reminiscent of the American flag. So, the way I’m taking that is his upper part was blue and white, not red. And his trousers or his pants were red and white.

In this particular cartoon, he’s actually also holding a doll or a puppet of Jefferson Davis, the leader of the Confederacy, and it was all supposed to be mocking and poking fun at the Confederacy and Thomas Nast. And I’m sorry, not Thomas Nast, but Jefferson Davis and all this other stuff, right? But this is where the American politics comes into it. Santa Claus, at least the American tale of Santa Claus, was a Republican supporter and was against slavery and the Democratic South. So, there’s the whole American politics going into Santa Claus now.

And this is the political cartoon for the North, for the Republicans that Thomas Nast came up with. And this portrayal of Santa Claus is what stuck around and really became the basis for the image of the Santa Claus that we know today. Not the colors. We’ll get into the colors in just a minute. So, hold your horses. We’re not got to that yet. But notice also the hat that he has here. And that is a pointy hat, not a miter hat or anything else. It’s the pointy hat that we’re more familiar with today.

Another one of Thomas Nast’s cartoons shows another depiction of Santa Claus and this was written later on in life, later on in history. This was created in 1881 by Thomas Nast. And here again, you can see that the whole image of Santa Claus, he’s holding and smoking a pipe while carrying kids toys. Now, the image on the right I just put there for show, but that wasn’t done by Nast. Someone else colored that in later, and it’s actually not really true, in my opinion, to the original that Thomas Nast did.

For instance, if you look closely at the outfit that he drew of Santa Claus, he’s not actually wearing the fur coat and stuff that we’re used to today, like you kind of see on the right there. What he’s actually wearing is long johns undergarments and that’s what he would travel around in according to Thomas Nast in his depiction. So you’ve got a obese elderly gentleman in underwear under garments smoking tobacco holding kids toys taking to the kids breaking into their homes at night. This is Santa Claus.

So anyways, we’ve got the um attributes from the poem The Night Before Christmas. We get the beginnings of the name from the 1821 poem that was written. We’ve got the imagery or at least the basic outline and parts of the image from Thomas Nast. We don’t yet really have the color settled. We got green, we’ve got blue, we’ve got red, etc., etc.

So, now we move on a little bit more in history and we come to a gentleman named Haddon Sundblom. This comes from wikipedia.org. Quote, Haddon Hubbard Sundblom was an American artist of Swedish and Finnish descent and best known for the images of Santa Claus he created for the Coca-Cola Company. Sundblom was born in Muskegon, Michigan to a Swedish-speaking family. His father came from the farm Norrlands in the village of Sundboda in Föglö Islands, now Finland, while his mother Karen Anderson was from Sweden. Sundblom is best remembered for his advertising work, specifically the Santa Claus advertisement. It was he who depicted Santa Claus in a red suit when he painted for the Coca-Cola Company. Sundblom’s Claus firmly established the larger-than-life grandfatherly Claus as a key figure in American Christmas imagery.” End quote. And that really stuck and is what come down to us today. That’s what we know of as the colors of Santa Claus.

Continuing on, the article continues, quote, according to the Coca-Cola Company. For inspiration, Sundblom turned to Clement Clarke Moore’s 1823 poem, A Visit from St. Nicholas. Moore’s description of Saint Nick led to an image of Santa that was warm, friendly, pleasantly plump, and human. Sundblom painted portraits of Santa that helped to create the modern image of Santa, an interpretation that today lives on in the minds of people of all ages all over the world. Sundblom’s family most likely also got Christmas greetings sent from Sweden and Finland a land. The cards in Sweden and Swedish-speaking Finland had motifs painted by Jenny Nyström of a friendly and charming Jultomte dressed in red and white.” End quote.

So, we’re just about to the end of the evolution of Santa as we know here in America. We got the name that first appears about 1821. We got the attributes in 1823 and the poem The Night Before Christmas. We get the basic image and what he looks like from black and white drawings by Thomas Nast, a political cartoonist during the Civil War. And we get the colors from a advertising creator for Coca-Cola Company. And that’s where we get the red and white from.

And just to clarify things, Coca-Cola did not invent Santa Claus. That was already around before Coca-Cola came up with all this advertising stuff. But they did establish and solidify the colors of Santa Claus. Important distinction. They didn’t come up with Santa Claus, but they established the colors for Santa Claus. And that’s pretty much how it all comes down to us today. It continues to evolve and change, but that’s pretty much the majority of what we know and understand about Santa Claus today.

Here on the left is the image that Sundblom created for the Coca-Cola company that became what we know of as Santa today. As far as the image colors and the attire and stuff like that, he’s no longer wearing the undergarments that Nast had drawn him in in certain pictures. It’s a fur coat and boots and pants that we’re all used to today. And here on the right, you see another depiction there.

Now, Sundblom was also famous for other pictures as well. He did lots of stuff that we know of here in America that we probably never thought of. He did the Aunt Jemima drawings. He also did the Quaker Oats drawings for the Quaker Oats Guy. He did the Sprite Boy for the Sprite advertising for the Coca-Cola Company. And one that I particularly hits home for me is the recruiting poster for the Marines or a recruiting poster for the Marines that you can see here on the left. And it’s actually very iconic and it’s, you know, it stands out and it’s remembered all throughout history. It’s something that’s going to stand the test of time because everyone knows it and it’s instantly recognizable. We’ve seen it before. Uh that was a drawing by Sundblom, the same guy who created the image of Santa Claus that we know today.

But that is the the origin, the history and the evolution comes down to us as the Santa Claus that we know and think of here in America. And it’s actually went back across the pond and Santa Claus has went back to Europe and Britain and places like that and has actually replaced and moved out the Sinterklaas traditions and understandings of some particular areas as well. So this again it’s still going on. It’s still continuing to migrate and mutate and evolve even today. It’s still not finalized.

Think Tank

But let’s try start winding down, start wrapping up, and let’s start thinking real quick about all the things we know of as Santa Claus and the history and evolution, stuff like that. And let’s think for ourselves. And there’s a whole bunch more that could have went into this. When I developed this whole series of episodes about Christmas, I used to would just do one episode and you couldn’t get all the information in about Christmas in one episode. So, I broke it down as into various parts, including Santa Claus. And I thought Santa Claus could be something that should be able to take up its own episode. Well, it’s already almost an hour and a half on just the d’var and we haven’t even got to everything that could be said about this whole history. Could have got into the whole Christkind. We could have got into the whole study and more information about Norse and pagan mythology that got moved in. We could have got into more information about Sinterklaas and Father Christmas. So, there could be a whole series just on the history of Santa Claus.

But from the information we know that we put forth in this particular teaching, they come down from the vein that came down from St. Nicholas to Sinterklaas to Santa Claus etc., etc. that we know here in America. So let’s think about all that information and the questions that was posed to us at the very beginning. How much can someone or something change before we’re speaking about a different person? And why even the change need for a change if it’s supposed to be the same guy? And what I’m referencing here is what we know of as Santa Claus today and the historical figure of Nicholas of Myra. Is Santa Claus St. Nicholas? Is Santa Claus Nicholas of Myra after everything we’ve learned after the whole history and all the changes and all the adaptations and all the additions that were put into the mythos are we still saying talking about the same guy and if not can we accurately refer to Santa Claus as Saint Nick?

Something to think about. And also like I said earlier, why even the need for a change if it’s supposed to be the same back. If you’re one of those proponents for the whole Santa Claus mythos, you say, “Well, it’s just, you know, based on Nicholas or St. Nicholas and that’s what it is.” Why do we need to change anything about the historical figure and what he did into what we have now? Why the need for a change? And that’s if you still think it’s the same guy, same thing. There’s no need for a change in other saints. We never changed Valentine into Cupid or Cupid Claus or whatever. It’s still Valentine. Still Saint Valentine if you’re Catholic.

And should we really venerate or worship saints to begin with? This is the whole Protestant question that was back at the Protestant Reformation. In my opinion, no. But you know, you decide for yourself. And if you say no that we should not venerate or worship saints, then why go along with this whole Santa Claus thing? Because as a lot of people put, it’s just St. Nicholas and the St. Nicholas tradition is still a veneration of a saint.

Nothing else to think about. Like I said earlier, there was no miter in the 4th century. There’s also no sun-disk or halo during the time of Nicholas of Myra. So keep that in mind as we talk about the image that has changed from Nicholas of Myra to the Santa Claus that we’ve got today. If you know things have changed and the miter and stuff was brought in to Catholicism sometimes known as Christianity but the miter was brought in and was put on all the saints and you even see Sinterklaas depicted with a miter. You see certain portraits and stained glass of St. Nicholas wearing a miter. So why doesn’t Santa have a miter hat? Why has he got the floppy furry hat that we usually see him with? Again, if you’re one of the proponents for Santa Claus being just St. Nicholas, then why does he have the miter hat like the Catholics portray St. Nicholas wearing nowadays? The whole derivation of Santa Claus does. So why not Santa Claus? These are all questions for you to answer yourself in your own mind and something to think about and possibly even propose to other people that you meet and talk to.

If Santa it really is supposed to be St. Nicholas and not something completely different. Again, for the sake of conversation. We’re assuming you’re going with the idea that he’s the same guy. If there not something completely different, then one could also tell their kids that they can visit the bones of Santa Claus in Bari, Italy. Remember last time, last week, we did the episode on St. Nicholas, and we learned that some people came and stole the bones of Nicholas of Myra and took them back to Bari where they still are today. So, if Santa Claus is just St. Nicholas, you could tell your kids, “Hey, we’re going to go visit dead Santa and see Santa’s bones.”

It gets even worse than that. Also, remember that we learned last time in our St. Nicholas episode that there is an an ooze that comes out from the coffin of St. Nicholas. And the Catholics harvest this stuff, which they call myrrh. They harvest it every year and they sell it in their stores there at the Basilica or Cathedral, whatever it is. Yeah. So, you could take your kids to Bari to see the bones of Santa and roll around in some Santa juice if you wanted to do that. I mean, that Oh my gosh. I’m Yeah, I’m sorry. I’m getting off topic here and probably not for the better, but I just had that thought earlier and I’m like, that’s hilarious. go see the bones of Santa and roll around in some Santa juice.

But anyways, if we’re talking about the saints and veneration or worship saints and things like that, personally, I like to get all back to the Bible. And the Bible has some very strong and strict observances and regulations when it comes to dead bodies. Now apply this to your thinking as well when you’re thinking about the collection of the ooze that comes from the coffin of St. Nicholas. We read in Numbers chapter 19:11–13.

“He who touches the dead of any human being is unclean for seven days. He is to cleanse himself with the water on the third day and on the seventh day he is clean. But if he does not cleanse himself on the third day, then on the seventh day he is not clean. Anyone who touches the dead of a human being and does not cleanse himself defiles the dwelling place of Yahweh. And that being shall be cut off from Israel. He is unclean. The water for uncleanness was not sprinkled on him. His uncleanness is still upon him.”

Also from Numbers chapter 19:16.

“Anyone in the open field who touches someone slain by a sword or who has died or a bone of a man or a burial site is unclean for seven days.”

This is not good. This is all the whole hygiene part of the regulations of Scripture and it’s important. Yahweh knows what he’s doing. Yahweh created the earth and everything in the universe. He knows what’s good for us and he says do not touch the dead stuff. And we know nowadays from germ theory and all that and bacteria and microscopes that you know you could get really sick or even die from decomposing bodies. So that’s why we don’t do it. But they didn’t know back then. He was just told by the creator don’t do this. And those of us who are faithful and trust in Yahweh go by what he tells us to do.

Unfortunately, apparently the Catholics do not do that because they still take the ooze from the decomposing body of one of their dead saints. Now, yes, people in Scripture did touch dead bodies. They had to in order to, you know, take care of them, to anoint them or wrap them up or bury them or whatnot. But it wasn’t just willy-nilly. They were they understood that they were unclean and should not be touching anyone else or anything holy or going to the temple or stuff like that for a set period of time. This is totally disregarded by what we’re talking about here with Nicholas of Myra when they take the ooze from Nicholas’s decomposing body after hundreds of years even and they have it in the church that is the whole place is unclean according to Scripture. And anyone who buys it, takes it home with them, uses it, puts it on themselves, they’re unclean and continuously unclean. And it’s just complete disregard for Scripture in this aspect. So keep all that in mind as we think about this whole thing. St. Nicholas, Nicholas of Myra, and Santa Claus.

Moving on, some more to think about. We’re not even close to being done yet. Well, we are close, but we had a few more things to go through. Anyways, those of you who know about Protestants or who are Protestant knows that we’re not supposed to venerate, worship, celebrate, or seek the intercession of quote unquote saints. We look at Revelation 19:10.

“And I fell at his feet to worship him. But he said to me, ‘See, do not do it. I am your fellow servant and of your brothers who possess the witness of Yeshua. Worship Elohim. For the witness of Yeshua is the spirit of prophecy.'”

Now, just a little caveat here in case you don’t understand this. in the Middle East. We went over this in our worship series episode during our Godhead series, but in the Middle East and the especially these Semitic cultures like the Hebrews and the Arabs and the Persians especially, they would bend down and they would bow themselves or kneel in front of someone that was superior in rank or a higher social status or someone they wanted to show respect to, stuff like that and that’s called shahah in Hebrew or proskuneó in Greek unless I’m wrong and I’ve totally forgot the word here but I’m thinking that the word here for worship is proskuneó. So what John here in Revelation is trying to do to this angel is show him respect and give him honor and stuff like that. But at this point in the story the angel is saying no no no we’re not having any of that. I’m not above you anymore. That we’re all equals. We’re all brothers. Don’t do that. Only worship Yahweh. Only worship Elohim. But this is with an angel. And it’s also something or someone or some being that is living, not dead and unconscious. Take that all into account. We’re not to do this to anything that’s dead and passed on and not even conscious.

So take all that in mind. We’re not to venerate or worship or seek the intercession of saints because it’s even worse than just trying to show them respect or venerate them or whatnot. We’re also told in Scripture that the people of Yahweh, the true faithful people of Yahweh are not to seek out the dead. Deuteronomy 18:10–11.

“Let no one be found among you who makes his son or daughter pass through the fire, or one who practices divination, or a user of magic, or one who interprets omens or a sorcerer, or one who conjures spells, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead.”

Don’t do it. Don’t call up the dead. Don’t call to the dead. don’t speak to the dead because they’re dead. They’re unconscious. They know not. They do not praise. They do not sing. They know nothing. This is all according Scripture.

Yeshua is also the one to be our mediator, not some dead, unconscious quote unquote saint. 1 Timothy chapter 2:5.

“For there is one Elohim and one Mediator between Elohim and man, the Man Messiah Yeshua.”

So who is it that intercedes for us between us and Yahweh? It’s Yeshua, not some saint. Again, it’s Yeshua. We don’t we’re not supposed to seek the intercession of some other human being or someone who is dead and unconscious. No, it’s Yeshua that is who seeks intercession for us who is our Mediator between Yahweh and us. He says that no one comes to the father except through me. Not through purgatory, not through some saint, through Yeshua.

Also, this gets even crazier. There are certain towns that were renamed or named themselves Santa Claus. Specifically, the phrase Santa Claus. No joke. And other places were named. They name themselves Bethlehem or North Pole or even Christmas. But yeah, there are certain towns that rename themselves as Santa Claus. There are also people who legally change their name to Santa Claus. Absolute craziness.

So, think about this. If Santa Claus is really supposed to be just St. Nicholas, just Saint Nick, well then what about the mythical elves? Do you find elves in the Bible? Nope. Do you find elves in like Greek or Roman mythology? I don’t. As far as I know, you don’t. Do you know or I do know where you find some elves at though. You find it in Nordic mythology. The elves in Nordic mythology were craftsmen of great and wondrous things. The supposedly according to Nordic mythology, the elves created the hammer for Thor among a great many other things. So elves by themselves and elves as craftsmen comes from Nordic mythology. What else have we studied and learned about this particular teaching that comes from Nordic mythology? All the attributes of Odin that were woven in to the whole Santa Claus mythos. Now we get also to the elves and the helpers of supposedly helpers of Santa Claus.

Next, if the Santa Claus mythos doesn’t incorporate Nordic pagan elements, then why reindeer instead of some Greek animal and why eight instead of some other number? Now, if you’re you’re in Greece, I don’t think they have reindeer down there. They have horses. They have camels. They have donkeys. Obviously, not reindeer. So, if Santa Claus is just St. Nicholas, it’s just all St. Nicholas or Nicholas of Myra, then why reindeer and why eight? Because remember, the legends about St. Nicholas or Nicholas of Myra usually involve the number three, not eight. Where does that number eight come from? I don’t know. Maybe some eight-footed horse that flies through the air with some pagan god. Just maybe.

Going on. Could there possibly be a glorification of obesity, breaking and entering, tobacco use, etc. Even if maybe it’s unintentional, the early portrayals, like we saw in the drawings and images earlier, you’re watching the video or looking at slides, these early portrayals of Santa Claus showed him smoking a pipe and it’s clearly a pipe. There’s no rationalizing away from that. It’s a tobacco pipe that he’s smoking. So, could there possibly be some sort of glorification of these various things that we really don’t want children or even adults partaking in? I mean, there’s obesity epidemic now and we’re putting this figure of Santa Claus up on a pedestal in the winter time and people are seeing him say, “Oh, well, look what you know that figure is. He’s fat and obese and probably nothing wrong with that.” breaking and entering. As long as you, you know, leave something as a gift. Is it okay to go break into someone’s house and watch them sleep? I did that. They get cops called on me.

Going on. When the heart, the will, and the spirit take an on entirely new nature, then we witness something profound. The same vessel, but a new creation within. This is just in general when it comes to the concept or the um subject of Santa Claus and Nicholas of Myra. This is just my opinion and the way I answered the questions from earlier. But in my opinion, Santa Claus is not the same thing as Nicholas of Myra. In fact, I feel sorry for the historical figure Nicholas of Myra because he was zealous and ardent for the faith. He would have been opposed to paganism and he would have he probably really would have come up and smacked somebody if he was brought forward in time and shown what kind of thing he was made into nowadays. Now I think the historical figure Nicholas of Myra and Santa Claus and even Sinterklaas for that matter are different ideas. They’re different functions. They are different people in so far as you can call a fairy tale a person. I think they’re all different and that’s just my opinion. Like we asked at the start, can something ever change into something different? And when is something or someone no longer what it used to be? Again, those are questions that you answer for yourself. I gave you my take on it and my opinion, but you answer those for yourself and answer for your own self whether Nicholas of Myra quote unquote St. Nicholas is the same thing as Santa Claus.

Summary

So in summary, let’s wrap this up. It’s already long enough. Nicholas of Myra was a bishop who lived at the end of the 3rd century and beginning of the 4th century. Christianity spread throughout the world taking its teachings and its people with it and unfortunately some bad things were incorporated and brought into it along the way. Sinterklaas is a derivation and continuation of the Nicholas of Myra story. Attributes and legends about Odin were incorporated into the Sinterklaas mythos.

When the Dutch and Germanic peoples migrated to America, they brought their myths and cultures with them. The first mention of the name Santa Claus was in 1821. The poem A Visit from St. Nicholas was first published in 1823 and this established most of what we know about Santa Claus but still referred to as Saint Nick in that poem.

Thomas Nast in an 1863 political cartoon mostly established the look of Santa Claus. Haddon Sundblom established the color scheme, the red and white that remained with Santa that we know today.

And there’s no biblical justification for the veneration or worship of people who have died with the lone exception of Yeshua. And that’s just the God Honest Truth.

We hope that you got something out of this. We hope that you learned something and you’re more educated than you were when you started this particular teaching. So, if you got something out of it that really lifts our spirits, that’s what we’re here for is to serve you and bring out the education so that you know more and you can go deeper in your walk in the faith. And we hope that you did get something out of this particular teaching.

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