DEAR SANTA'S FAMILY TREE

DEAR SANTA'S FAMILY TREE

The man we call Father Christmas has a family tree with tangled roots, reaching down through  ages and cultures.

Those roots stretch back to Bronze Age Britain from where his association with the pleasures of food and warmth come.

A Father Christmas figure was associated with a series of pagan myths in those pre-Christian times to do with keeping hunger and cold at bay through long, cold, dark, winter nights.  He was also seen as a bringer of light as well as warmth.

As a result, he was associated with December 21st, the longest night of the year and the turning point in the winter calendar leading to lighter, warmer times.

In later times, after the arrival of Christianity, the man who became St Nicholas was born.

He is said to have been bron at Petara, souther Turkey in 270AD to a Chrisitan couple who had been childless for 20 years.

His parents died when he was young and as a young man he was persecuted for his Christian beliefs.  Later he became Bishop of Myra and was famous for his charity work.

He founded an orphanage, rescued three boys from a murderous innkeeper and saved three sisters from a life of prostitution by throwing gold coins through their bedroom window.

One version of the legen says the coins landed in their shoes as they slept, another says they dropped into the girls' socks.  The idea of giving children gifts in his name caught on and spread around the world.

Over the last couple of hundred years, the many immigrants going to America took with them their own versions of the Christmas legend.

Shamans, from the snowlands of Nortjern Asia, brought the tale of a Christmas visitor who travelled in a sledge pulled by reindeer.  The visitor climbed into homes that were buried in deep snow by the only access point, their smoke holes.

From that came the notion of Father Christmas climbing down the chimneys.

Shamens also told of reindeer that flew, although these tales are thought to have more to do with the story tellers' fondness for "magic" mushrooms than anything else.

The word "Yuletide" was brought to Britiain by Norse followers of Odin yelling "Yalka Tyd" a message of cheer which meant  "the shining one".  Odin was another figure brought from cold climes who brought gifts of warmth and light.

Dutch settlers took the legend of Santa Claus to America where it became mixed with other Christmas myths.

Clement Moors, an American Professor of Theology fused the many myths into a poem for his children in 1820.

That poem combined all the Christmas myths that were current at that time.

It brought together St. Nicholas' kindliness towards children, with flying reindeer and a gift-bringing guest who climbed into family homes through the chimney.

The Clement Moore version of the Santa  myth travelled to England in 1870, where it was merged with the pre-Christian Father Christmas, a jolly man with a beard, who brought warmth and light.

In 1931 he acquired his now traditional reed and white colours by courtesy of a Coca cola advert which designed his outfit in the comapny colours.

Before that, his colours had often been blue, associated with Odin or browns associated with animal skin clothing in Northern snowlands.

Psycologist Stephen Sayer has argued that adults need the Father Christmas story as much as the children.  Mr Sayer, a lecturer at Leeds Metropolitan University believes that by celebrating the myths and rituals, adults can learn to think again in the creative way they thought as children.

From Newcastle Evening Chronicle  (1980's/90's)