Christmas has two distinct themes running through it, as study of any
collection of Christmas cards shows. One is the religious aspect,
involving Wise Men, angels, the Star and shepherds, and refers to the
Gospel story of the birth of Christ. The other theme seems totally
unrelated and depicts reindeer, stockings, a sleigh and, of course, Santa Claus.
The two main Christmas personalities are Jesus and Santa, as most people
will agree. Everyone brought up in a Christian country knows the
significance of Jesus at this time but just who is Father Christmas
and why should he become part of a religious festival?
We must first look back at history and see why December became such an
important month in the religious calendar in the first place. The
reason is, of course, the Winter Solstice, December 21st, when the
Sun appears to stop in the sky prior to beginning its journey back
a cross the heavens.
After the Solstice the days gradually get longer and the peoples of old
considered this to be almost the birthday of the Sun. The peoples of
the northern hemisphere were fond of having a festival in mid-winter,
perhaps because they needed something to take their minds off the long, cold, dark days.
In ancient Rome the feast of Saturnalia was held between December 17th
and 23rd and gifts were exchanged. The Romans also held the feast of
Brumalia on the Solstice day itself and considered this to be the
birthday of Mithra the unconquered Sun god. The Norsemen celebrated
Yule at this time, to herald the return of the Sun.
It is interesting to note that Christ is often known as the Light of
the World, a title that continues this theme of darkness in retreat
in the face of good.
The Solstice has long been associated with the idea of people giving
each other presents. Apart from giving gifts at Saturnalia the Romans
also exchanged presents on the feast of the Kalends, which we call
New Year's Day. These customs prevailed all over the Roman Empire
when Christianity was still a new religion.
When Christianity spread to the northern lands they found the Norsemen
worshipping Odin -- who rode his chariot through the night sky at the
time of the Winter Solstice, handing out gifts.
Because the exchange of gifts was so linked in the pagan mind with these old
festivals devout Christians were not supposed to exchange gifts at
this time. However, gift-exchange never died out on the European
scene and finally the Church fathers had to do something about it.
They did not want to let people keep on believing that Odin or any
other pagan deity had anything to do with gift-bringing so they
looked around for an acceptable Christian figure to bring them
instead. The person they chose was St Nicholas, the former Bishop of
Myra in the 4th century AD.
Not much is actually known about St Nicholas, though many legends grew
up around his kind ly figure. One thing that qualified him for the
role of gift-bringer was his feast day being December 6th, a date
sufficiently close to the Solstice for the two to be connected in the mass mind.
St Nicholas was a useful saint and could even be described as
all-purpose. His responsibilities included the welfare of pawn-brokers,
boatmen, parish clerks, dockers and barrel-makers among others. He
was the patron saint of both Russia and Aberdeen. The best-known
story about him tells of his leaving three bags of gold on a poor
man's windowsill as dowries for his three daughters. One version of
this tale states that the gold was thrown through the window and
landed in a stocking that had been hung up to dry, which perhaps
explains our custom of the Christmas stocking.