Christmas is best pondered, not with logic, but with imagination — Max Lucado
Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love — Hamilton Wright Mabie
According to Google, Dutch families took the tradition of celebrating the feast day of Saint Nicholas with them to the American colonies, beginning as early as the 17th century. They referred to him as Sinterklaas. That name became Santa Claus to the early United States; English-speaking majority. Saint Nicholas was a bishop who lived in the area now Turkey. Both his parents died while Nicholas was young. They left their son a large amount of money. Nicholas was a kind and generous young man. He loved helping the poor and secretly giving gifts. Nicholas put a bag of gold down the chimney of a poor man who had no money for his three daughters’ dowry required for marriage. Perhaps the first occurrence of stockings and gifts coming down the chimney. Nicholas would later become both a Bishop and a Saint.
On December 10. 1905 American author William Sydney Porter known as O. Henry published “The Gift of the Magi” in “The New York Sunday World” The story tells of Della and Jim, poor newlyweds. On the day before Christmas Della realizes she only has $1.87 mostly in pennies to buy Jim a gift. Della decides to sell her knee long hair to a wig maker and buy Jim a platinum chain for his pocket watch. She gives Jim her gift only to learn Jim had sold his watch to buy Della a set of hair combs. Their story compares their sacrificial gifts to that of the Magi.
In 1823 “The Night Before Christmas” was published anonymously in the “Troy Sentinel” of Troy, New York, presumably by Clement Clarke Moore. In 1837 he openly claimed authorship. The claim was never disputed in his lifetime. It is said Moore based his story of Santa Claus on both Saint Nicholas and a local Dutch handyman where he lived in New York. The legend says the handyman operated a sleigh that once took Moore home.
In 1843 Charles Dickens published his “A Christmas Carol,” the storyline of Ebenezer Scrooge and the Cratchits. It is likely Dickens used his own life as a child to write his story. His family had experiences of debtors prison. As a young boy he was made to leave school and work in a factory. Michael Slater, Dickens’ biographer, believed Dickens thought the story would help “open the hearts of the prosperous and the powerful towards the poor and powerless.”
Luke in the Bible writes the greatest story of all: Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased.”
Shannon Bardwell is a writer living quietly in the Prairie. Email reaches her at [email protected].
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