On December 23rd, 1823, the poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas” was published anonymously in the Troy, NY Sentinel.

The tales in the Stories from the Golden Age conjure up a time when life, despite its trials, was less complicated. It was easier to tell good from evil, and no matter the problem, heroes always emerged in time to save the day. “A Visit from St. Nicholas” similarly evokes a Golden Age of Christmas: a magical and ideal holiday season in which the most magical figure, Santa Claus, never fails to deliver the dearest wishes of children in a sleigh drawn through the starlit winter sky by eight tiny reindeer.

Clement Clarke Moore is credited with writing the poem, for his own children, that has become so much a part of the Christmas season that it twines through most modern images that we have of the holiday in the US and beyond. The Santa Claus that today dandles children on his lap in stores and malls across the country draws his likeness from the “right jolly old elf” Moore depicted. The original St. Nicholas was a third-century Greek saint known for his generosity, love of children, and protection of both children and sailors. He sometimes left bags of gold in stockings of the poor that were hung by the chimney to dry. His transformation into the gift-giving elf clad in red still commemorates those filled stockings.

But other images we now know and love were other borrowings, or even Moore’s own invention, such as St. Nicholas’ snowy white beard and “little round belly” and the method he used to deliver his gifts: down the chimney. Moore also borrowed the names of the reindeer Donder and Blitzen (Blixem in the original version) from the Dutch (they translate as Thunder and Lightning), along with the notion that St. Nicholas flies about the countryside to deliver gifts.

He did not want at first to be associated with the poem, preferring to be known for his more scholarly works, but in 1844 at the insistence of his children, it was included in an anthology of his works under his own name. Now his name is inextricably linked with the man who personifies Christmas Eve to little children: Santa Claus.

IMAGE CAPTION: Thomas Nast’s most famous drawing, “Merry Old Santa Claus”, from the January 1, 1881 edition of Harper’s Weekly. Thomas Nast immortalized Santa Claus’ current look with an initial illustration in an 1863 issue of Harper’s Weekly, as part of a large illustration titled “A Christmas Furlough” in which Nast set aside his regular news and political coverage to do a Santa Claus drawing.

GOLDEN AGE HISTORY INSPIRED BY: The Stories from the Golden Age by L. Ron Hubbard. (read more…)

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