Just who is Father Christmas?

What do you call him? Father Christmas or Santa Clause? In our home he’s known by both names, but there was a time of course when he was known only as St. Nicholas, across Europe and throughout the Christian world.

It’s not disputed that St. Nicholas (270-343 AD) is the origin of the Father Christmas myth. Not a great deal is known about him, and most stories about his life were written centuries after his death, but one of the earliest tales taps directly into his later incarnation of St. Nicholas the gift giver.  He is said to have rescued three poverty-struck young girls from being forced onto the streets by dropping a sack of gold coins through the window of their house each night for three nights, so their father could afford to pay a dowry for each of them and find them a husband, instead. (Oh, those were the days…Not.)

Over the centuries St. Nicholas’s popularity spread and he became known as the protector of children. His feast day is celebrated on the anniversary of his death, December 6. By the 1500s St. Nicholas was the most popular saint in Europe. 

In the Netherlands, where he was known as Sint Nicolaas (which became Sinterklaas), the tradition of leaving gifts for children on St. Nicholas’s Day grew. The name Santa Claus was first used in the New York Gazette in 1773, derived from the Dutch Sinterklaas, brought by the influx of Dutch immigrants during the time when New York was in fact New Amsterdam (1625-1644).

In England, Father Christmas was for centuries, right up until the late 1800s, more a personification of the festive period; not a religious character, but more associated with parties and fun, festive food and drunken revelry, and not with gift giving or indeed with children at all. A jolly old man more in the pagan tradition than the Christian, indeed. In the Victorian era there came a hankering for all things pleasant and family-oriented, and society gradually began to place children at the heart of the season, not drunken revelling. Stories of Santa Claus were crossing the Atlantic and very quickly the two became conflated, with the new tradition of Father Christmas bringing gifts for children on Christmas Eve taking over from his previous raucous party boy incarnation. 

Elsewhere, different traditions have grown and children receive their gifts from slightly different magical beings.

In France, Father Christmas is known as Père Noël (which translates, of course, as Father Christmas) and he rewards children who have been good with gifts and treats. According to tradition, on Christmas Eve children leave their shoes by the fireplace filled with carrots and treats for Père Noël’s donkey, Gui (Mistletoe), before they go to bed and wake to find them filled with goodies. Interestingly, Père Noël travels with an alter-ego, Père Fouettard (which translates as Father Whipper), who spanks children who have been naughty. While I like the idea of the alter ego (he might come in handy when small children get over-excited) I am not at all sure about the whipping…

In some parts of Germany, Christkindl, or the Christ Child, brings gifts to children on Christmas Eve. Christkindl is usually drawn as a child riding a mule and is believed to enter homes through keyholes. In other areas it is St. Nikolaus who brings gifts for good children and, like Père Noël, he has an alter ego who travels with him: Knecht Ruprecht. St. Nikolaus and Knecht Ruprecht visit on 6 December, St. Nicholas’ Day, and woe betide the naughty child, as Knecht Ruprecht carries a birch stick with him, and knows how to use it. In the Alpine regions he is known as Krampus, and also carries a stick for beating naughty children.

It is perhaps Italy’s folklore I like the best, however. In Italy children have to wait till January 5th (the eve of Epiphany, traditionally the day the Three Kings arrived at Jesus’s birthplace with their gifts for him) for their own good behaviour gifts, which are delivered by an old lady named La Befana. 

Once a year La Befana leaves the mountain caves where she is said to live and flies through the air to bring toys or sweets to good children – while naughty children wake up to nothing more than a lump of coal. La Befana rides a broom and enters the home by flying down the chimney, but house proud mammas need not fear, as she uses her broom to sweep up any soot she brings down with her.

There are several legends around La Befana’s origin. One legend has it that La Befana was an ordinary woman with an adored child. Tragically, her child died, and her resulting grief sent her mad. Upon hearing news of Jesus’s birth she set out to see him, believing that he was in fact her son. Upon meeting Jesus with his mother she presented him with gifts, to make him smile. He was delighted, and he gave La Befana a gift in return – she would be the mother of every child in Italy. 

However you spend Christmas, I wish you a very happy one and a wonderful New Year.

Eddie – Monday 23rd December 2024. (Image used of Father Christmas).