Do you know the real story about Santa Claus?

The progenitor of the modern Santa was born in the Mediterranean during

the Roman Empire in the late third century, around 280 A.D. 

He became bishop of Myra, a small Roman town in modern Turkey.

Nicholas was neither fat nor jolly but developed a reputation as a fiery, wiry,

and defiant defender of church doctrine during the Great Persecution in 303,

when Bibles were burned and priests made to renounce Christianity or face execution.

Nicholas defied these edicts and spent years in prison before the Roman emperor 

Constantine ended Christian persecution in 313 with the Edict of Milan.

Nicholas's fame lived long after his death (on 6 December 343) because he

was associated with many miracles and reverence for him continues to this day

independent of his Christmas connection. He is the protector of many types of people, 

from orphans to sailors to prisoners.

St. Nicholas became known as a patron of children and magical gift-bringer 

because of this great story from his life:

Three young girls are saved from a life of prostitution when young Bishop Nicholas

secretly delivers three bags of gold to their indebted father,

which can be used for their dowries.

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For several hundred years, circa 1200 to 1500, St. Nicholas was the unchallenged

bringer of gifts and the toast of celebrations centered around his feast day,

December 6. The strict saint took on some aspects of earlier European deities,

like the Roman Saturn or the Norse Odin, who appeared as white-bearded men

and had magical powers like flight. He also ensured that kids toed the line

by saying their prayers and practicing good behavior.

But after the Protestant Reformation began in the 1500s, 

saints like Nicholas fell out of favor across much of northern Europe.

Now, the job to bring gifts fell to baby Jesus, and the date was moved

to Christmas rather than December 6. 

So the Christ child was often given a scary helper to do the lugging of presents and 

the threatening of kids that doesn't seem appropriate coming from the baby Jesus.

Those scary Germanic figures again were based on Nicholas,

no longer as a saint but as a threatening sidekick.

In the Netherlands, kids and families simply refused to give up St. Nicholas as

a gift-bringer. They brought Sinterklaas with them to New World colonies.

But in early America Christmas was shunned in New England, and elsewhere it had 

become a bit like the pagan Saturnalia that once occupied its place on the calendar.

Then, during the early decades of the 19th century,

all that changed thanks to a series of poets and writers who strove to make

Christmas a family celebration—by reviving and remaking St. Nicholas.

Washington Irving's 1809 book Knickerbocker's History of New York 

first portrayed a pipe-smoking Nicholas soaring over the rooftops in a flying wagon,

delivering presents to good girls and boys and switches to bad ones.
In 1822 Clement Clarke Moore wrote described Santa riding a sleigh

driven by eight familiar reindeer.

Finally, the jolly, chubby, grandfatherly face of this Santa was largely created

by Thomas Nast, the great political cartoonist in the late 19th century.

Once firmly established, North America's Santa then underwent a kind of reverse

migration to Europe, replacing the scary gift bringers and adopting local names

like Père Noël (France) or Father Christmas (Great Britain).

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Credit: National Geographic