From Forums of the Virgin Mary [translated]:

How Santa Claus was created on the basis of a Christian saint to outshine the birth of Jesus.

Christmas has been stripped of any connotation that evokes the birth of Jesus, the son of God, who came to bring salvation to the world.

And it was transformed into a time of festivities, where people give each other gifts.

And with the same criteria, the enemies of Jesus transformed a real saint that existed, into Santa Claus or Santa Claus, to remove all Christian and spiritual connotations.

Here we will talk about who was that famous saint who was transformed into the current Santa Claus, mentioned today only as Santa, what miracles he did for which he was so considered and how the enemies operated to build this current character of Santa.

There was a bishop who lived in the 4th century who is known as Saint Nicholas of Myra, from the place where he plied his trade in the Middle East.

Or San Nicolás de Bari, for Bari, Italy, the place where his remains were transferred , given the danger of their desecration by the Muslim invasion.

This saint was so popular in ancient times that more than two thousand temples have been consecrated to him in the world.

In dangers, in shipwrecks, in fires and when the economic situation became difficult, people obtained admirable favors through her intercession.

Nicholas was born in the city of Patras in Greece, of wealthy and pious parents. 

His parents were fervent Christians and raised him in Christian values.

Since he was a child, he stood out for being pious and for not caring about giving to the poorest what was within his reach.

When his parents died, Nicolás inherited a large fortune, which he put at the service of those most in need.

Then his uncle, the Bishop of Patara, ordained young Nicholas a priest and made him his personal assistant.

The young man proved to be a zealous catechist, an inspiration to the Christian community, and an obedient servant to his uncle.

But after his death, Palestinian Christians maintain that Nicholas went to live in a cave as a hermit for three years, after visiting the holy places.

And in a vision Nicholas was told to come back.

He went to live in Myra, currently Turkey, where he was appointed bishop in a very peculiar way.

The story relates that several priests and bishops were discussing who would be the future bishop, since the previous one had died.

They could not agree, and it was decided that the first priest to enter the temple at that moment would be chosen.

And Nicolás came in casually.

He was then appointed archbishop.

When he was bishop, he ordered the demolition of the temple of Artemis in Myra, which was the largest and most famous in Lycia, as well as several other pagan temples, in his attempt to eradicate pagan cults.

But these were difficult years for the archbishop and his flock, who were forced underground by the brutal Roman Emperor Diocletian, who extended persecution of Christians.

During this time the good archbishop, who had the charisma of bilocation, often appeared to the imprisoned members of his flock to give encouragement and comfort.

Until the day he was also discovered in hiding and put in jail, his beard was burned and he was tortured, but he survived.

Nicholas would receive, according to tradition, two apparitions of the Virgin Mary.

The first apparition occurred before he became a priest and the second during the celebration of Holy Mass at the end of the Council of Nicaea.

In both apparitions, Mary induces him to fulfill his spiritual mission.

Nicholas was very committed to supporting the doctrine of the divinity of Christ.

He attended the first ecumenical council at Nicea in 325.

And he was seen enraged by Arius’s denial of the divinity of Jesus Christ.

He then walked towards Arius who was arguing, pulled him down by the beard, and punched him in the face.

The scandalized council fathers pounced on Nicholas, stripped him of his cloak, and threw him in jail for his brutal conduct.

That night, Nicolás received a visit from the Holy Family, who loosened his bonds and dressed him in his apostolic attire.

The bishops were amazed by this miracle and realized that Nicholas’s anger was just.

And he was restored with honor to his chair, where the elderly prelate slept through most of the remaining proceedings.

When he awoke from one of his naps, he was accused of sleeping in on the Council, whereupon the venerable Nicholas replied, “while you were talking, I was busy rescuing a ship from a disaster at sea.”

Greek captains still keep the ancient custom of promising a statue of Saint Nicholas on the ship, called Tamata, if the saint saves them from disaster, in the middle of a storm.

His miracles were so admirable when praying to this great saint, that devotion to Saint Nicholas became extremely popular throughout Europe.

And he has become the patron saint of Russia, Greece and Turkey.

Another well-known miracle is that of having returned to life through his intercession three children who had fallen from a tree and died instantly; that is why he is sometimes drawn with three children.

It is also narrated that he once saved the lives of three generals unjustly sentenced to death.

And the most recent miracle in time was in World War II, when in a bombardment of the city of Bari, a mother distanced herself from her child in the midst of the confusion, but happily appeared hours later at the door of the house healthy. and saved.

And the boy recounted that a man he described as Saint Nicholas assisted him, protected him and took him back to his home.

But the most relevant of the saint were his works of charity.

Famously, the saint threw stockings with gold coins through an open window of a house, to help prevent three sisters from being sold into slavery, because they had no dowry to marry. 

From this and his many other charities came the general idea that he would come down from heaven on Christmas Eve and give gifts to children who behaved well.

And the tradition arose for children to write Christmas letters to the Child Jesus, delivered by the saint.

When the children lay down on the eve of Saint Nicholas Day, December 5, or from December 16 to 24 in front of the manger, they wrote their requests to little Jesus.

These letters contain lists of desired Christmas gifts and are carried to heaven by Saint Nicholas and also by angels.

But the enemies of the Church could not bear the popular fame of Saint Nicholas among children and invented another figure to divert their attention.

In France they transformed the traditional Saint Nicholas into the secular figure of Père Noel.

The title of père or father, is a common title given to the elderly who have a kind of patriarchal role among the simple people.

And the word Noel is an exclamation of joy, similar to Hallelujah, normally reserved for the Christmas festivities.

Thus they invented the figure of Santa Claus, who would do precisely the same as Saint Nicholas, but would no longer be a reflection of Catholic charity and holiness.

While the Protestants, who hated the cult of saints, replaced the legend of Saint Nicholas with the legend of a Nordic magician named Sinterklaas. 

The name Santa Claus is simply a derivation of the Dutch word Sinterklaas, which is a translation of the Latin Sanctus Nicolaus.

And then they mixed many characteristics of the magician, such as the sleigh, the reindeer, etc., with the life of Saint Nicholas and thus diverted the admiration of the children from a religious figure to a fantasy.

Also in 1809, Washington Irving wrote the Knickerbocker History of New York.

A work of imagination, which included several stories about a jolly Dutch dwarf running up the chimneys to bring gifts to children.

And later around 1863, thanks to the German draftsman Thomas Nast, he acquired the current physiognomy of a good-natured bearded fat man, with which he is best known.

Being represented from there as an old man dressed in red, with a very white beard, who went from house to house distributing gifts and sweets to the children.

So that Santa Claus and Santa Claus, and even the Old Easter that emerged in Chile, as well as other similar characters, are the same person in the current tradition, which derive from a saint who existed and was called San Nicolás.

Currently this legendary character, without any Christian connotation, brings gifts to children on the night of December 24 to 25, in a Christmas stripped of the connotation of the birth of Jesus.

Throwing gold into people’s socks was a custom started by Saint Nicholas to help people in financial trouble.

It has its current counterpart in the stockings stuffed in the fireplaces in the United States, for example, and in the children’s wooden clogs with gifts in the Netherlands.

Well up to here what we wanted to talk about how the image of Santa Claus or Santa Claus was built, based on a very popular Catholic saint, Saint Nicholas, from whom all reference to Christianity and Catholicism was removed, in the same way that Christmas was removed from all reference to the birth of Jesus Christ.

And I would like to ask you which figure currently predominates in your country as the one who brings gifts at Christmas, Santa Claus, Papa Noel, Santa, or what name.

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[resources: pilgrimage, Italy]