In the spirit of Christmas, our trivia question is: What is Santa Claus’ origin? Greek? Turkish? Dutch? Italian? German? Swedish? American? Will you be surprised if we told you that it’s actually a mix of all these?
Strange but true – Saint Nicholas was born in the village of Patara, which used to be part of Greece, but in modern times is already part of Turkey. His being a very generous man enabled him to gather a very strong following within the Mediterranean countries. After his death, sailors interested in his bones brought it to Italy, and this is when his following further strengthened and moved up to Germany. The German pagans merged his personality with another pagan god, Woden, who was the father of Thor, and used Woden’s features of a big white beard who rode a horse into the heavens, as part of Saint Nicholas’ new look. The Christians later on took on the task of adopting Saint Nicholas into the “Christmas” celebration.
A poem in the 1800’s transformed Saint Nicholas’ horse into a group of 8 reindeers, while a Bavarian artist later on developed more his story of living in the North Pole, working with elves, and having a list of naughty and nice children to give gifts to during Christmas. His red winter coat is the result of Coca-Cola using a Swedish artist to draw him drinking a can of Coke, with the only requirement of making sure that both the brand and coat reds were the same shade. And last but not the least, Saint Nicholas, in Dutch, is actually, Santa Claus. TADA!