Will the real Santa please stand up ?

Although St Nicholas is taken to be the original Santa Claus, we hardly know anything about him – indeed, some have doubted his very existence. What we know for sure is that St Nicholas was a bishop who probably lived in the fourth century in Myra, which is in the southwest of what is today Turkey. One of the earliest legends connected with this saint goes something like this: St Nicholas heard of a man who could not afford the dowries for his three daughters and – much to his chagrin – had to send them to a brothel to earn money. To save them from this fate, St Nicholas threw three bags of gold through their window one night. Over the course of the medieval period, the legend of St Nicholas continued to develop and in addition to becoming the patron of sailors, he also became the patron of children. This was a consequence of a popular tale of his saving three children from being eaten by an innkeeper (he had allegedly already pickled them). The American Santa Claus was probably inspired by the Dutch tradition of gift-giving Sinterklaas. However, the American Santa is a secular visitor who arrives at Christmas, rather than December 6 when Sinterklass did. It was Thomas Nast’s...