By Bob Sullivan
While the title of this column isn’t quite as catchy as “Keep Christ in Christmas,” the goal is very similar, and maybe even more necessary.
First, Christmas is not about Santa Claus, it is about Christ. And Santa Claus actually comes from a devotion to St. Nicholas of Myra, a bishop in the 300s in what is now modern-day Turkey. Devotion to St. Nicholas is an indirect devotion to Christ, because St. Nicholas imitated Christ and brought the Gospel to many people. The Church celebrates his feast day Dec. 6 each year (a.k.a December Sixolas. I made the word “sixolas” up so it would kind of rhyme).
St. Nicholas of Myra has a few legends about him, which you can recognize in today’s Santa Claus. St. Nicholas had a heart for children, he gave gifts, and he was likely quite joyful if not jolly. The details and the accuracy of these legends are mostly unknown. What is known is that Catholics have venerated St. Nicholas for a very long time.
For us, Santa Claus is just a secularized version of St. Nicholas and an unavoidable part of our American Christmas tradition. This is because of the slow distortion of the ancient devotion to St. Nicholas of Myra which started centuries ago, but arrived on American shores in the late 1700s. According to some historians, that is when reports of a Dutch tradition showed up in New York (which was known as New Amsterdam at that time).
Many Dutch families celebrated Sinter Klaas, a shortened form of Sint Nikolaas (Dutch for Saint Nicholas) Dec. 6 each year. You might think that these families were Catholic, since non-Catholics are not very interested in saints, but in this case, you would be wrong. The Dutch families were likely Reformed Protestant Dutch who mostly followed the teachings of John Calvin at that time. Early Protestants were once Catholic, and many very Catholic teachings, practices, beliefs, and traditions continued in various Protestant churches for a very long time. In fact, many denominations still practice things which they learned from the Catholic faith and others are reintroducing Catholic beliefs and traditions into their faith, though they often call them by different names and reject any connections.
The stories of the Dutch Sinter Klaas tradition were mingled with the English tradition of Father Christmas, which appears to have started in early 1600s England due to a play written by Ben Johnson.
Modern Santa Claus seems to be a mashup of St. Nicholas, Sinter Klaas, and Father Christmas, with a few purely American traits added by people such as Clement Clarke Moore, throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. No one can predict who or what Santa Claus may resemble in years to come, as he is undergoing a nearly constant process of being remade, similar to the way many modern Christians reform Christ into their likeness and image.
As Christians, we can always draw on the origins of Santa Claus in order to keep things from being totally lost to secularism. While it is fun and can be quite innocent to enjoy “the holidays” and to watch the Christmas specials of our youth with Santa or Kris Kringle, with his loyal friends such as Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer, the Burger Meister, and his greatest supporter, Mrs. Claus, we would all benefit by renewing a devotion to St. Nicholas of Myra, and restoring the feast of Christ’s birth in Bethlehem.
Maybe your family could begin emphasizing St. Nicholas’ feast day (Dec. 6). I know many Catholic families who encourage their children to set their shoes out before going to bed Dec. 5, so they will find a few coins or treats the next morning, hearkening some of the legends attributed to St. Nicholas. However, this practice should not be a stand-alone tradition. Parents should read the stories of St. Nicholas to their children Dec. 5 and 6. Otherwise, it is just a variation of the mysterious old man who slides down chimneys (which is a deadly hobby for the rest of us), or it turns St. Nicholas into a sort of tooth fairy.
Another great tradition would apply to adults: If you happen to be a bishop, you could punch a heretic Dec. 6, since St. Nicholas is also reputed to have slugged the heretic Arius in the nose during the Council of Nicea in 325 AD.
Then on Christmas day, we could turn the dial down on materialism, consumerism, and other worldly interests a bit and focus more on the birth of Christ, the angel chorus, the holy family, and peace on earth.
Both feasts would be best celebrated by going to Mass.
By reducing our adherence to worldly expectations throughout December, and giving much more of our time and energy to our faith, we would naturally feel much more peace in our lives. This is even more important when we recognize that many people around us seem to experience more – not less – stress, depression, loneliness and despair from Thanksgiving to Christmas each year. Since our worldly desires only result in our loss of freedom and therefore our imprisonment, who better to venerate each December than a saint who freed slaves and protected children from a life of slavery?
I doubt we’ll start seeing bumper magnets which remind us to keep St. Nicholas of Myra in December Sixolas. But seeing an increased devotion to the real St. Nicholas, which eventually converts Santa Claus back into St. Nick, or better yet, St. Nicholas of Myra, a Catholic bishop who was serving the Church when the first public churches were being built in a newly legalized religion called the Catholic Church? That would be really good.
