It was a chilly winter night a few years ago, and my dad and I were walking downtown doing some very last-minute Christmas shopping, and we pass a large ad with drawing of Santa Claus holding toys and gifts. I didn’t notice it, but my dad stared at the painting, and told me how fascinated he was by the concept of Santa. In the mid-80s, when my dad was 6 years old, he saw a poster of a really fat man in a fur trimmed red outfit on the roof of a store, and him being in Asmara, Eritrea during this time, he had no idea what “Santa Claus” was. “I thought it was the weirdest thing ever,” my dad said, “I only realized when I moved to America and a friend explained that it was Santa.”

This got me thinking, what truly was Santa, and why has he become such a phenomenon of western Christmas celebrations?

To understand Santa, we have to understand the history of 4th-century Greek Christian bishop Saint Nicholas.  Saint Nick is the saint of children, and he became famous for his gift giving and eventually became the methodical Santa Claus. St. Nick’s origins in the U.S. came with Dutch settlers in the 17^th century New York, and the folklore caught on, with it gaining more mainstream American popularity in the 19^th century which was the century with the most Santa related media, pictures, and poems like A Visit from St. Nicholas (year 1823).

Other versions of Santa Claus were popular all-over early Europe, like England’s Father Christmas (aka Ghost of Christmas Present) in the 16^th century, Sinterklaas in Belgium and the Netherlands, which was the “gift-giver,” but Sinterklaas being very alike Santa is looks, doesn’t have elves or reindeer. In Switzerland, Sinterklass is not the one who gives coal to naughty children, but instead is Père Fouettard who is a man dressed in long robes with a whip, stick, and is covered in straw.

The poem A Visit from St. Nicholas, layed the foundation of a lot of things that is associated with Santa, that were not originated by the St. Nicholas folklore the Dutch brought. This poem is said to have started the gift giving culture of Christmas, the eight flying reindeers, and the idea of Santa carrying a sack of toys down a chimney on Christmas Eve.

But the origin of the appearance of Santa Claus is theorized to have come from the god Odin (Wodan), who was a Norse god in pagan Europe. As Europe Christianized, Odin’s appearance of a long white beard and riding his horse Sleipnir, turned into St. Nick with a red suit, white beard, and riding reindeer. Our modern-day depictions of Santa started by Thomas Nast, who drew a heavyset white bearded man as Santa Claus in the 3 January 1863 issue of Harper’s Weekly, who was giving gifts to soldiers amidst the Civil War. Thomas Nast could have also started the theory that Santa lived in the North Pole, featuring “Santa Claussville,” Santa’s home and toy factory in the North Pole “in ice and snow.”

Santa Claus as we know it today was finally modeled in the 20^th century, where Christmas in the U.S. became about gifts and cheer, and Santa was at the forefront of it. The music, stories, movies, and side characters like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, elves, the nice and naughty list, were all formulated during this time.

It is hard to imagine a time where there was Christmas without Santa Claus, but as my dad said “sure Santa was a little weird at first, but I loved it once I saw how much the kids loved it.”