When I was a boy, my dad preached a message he called “Satan’s Claws.” My dad was an avid doodler, and he loved to preach with a whiteboard marker in his hand. So, while he preached his message, he drew up a Santa on the whiteboard, and then as he spoke, he kept adding details. I remember particularly the claw he drew up on the board in that message.
Immediately after the message, a great purging took place in our home, and for the next few years, Santa Claus was canceled in the Mallinak home. No Santa hats, no Rudolph, no “Here Comes Santa Claus,” no Bing Crosby. I think my dad found it tough to eradicate all the Santa references since they tend to be everywhere and in everything at this time of year. But, he made a valiant effort. Eventually, as things go, he didn’t feel the need to expunge Santa from the holiday. But I have never forgotten those “Santa-free” years.
Every culture develops traditions that reflect and reinforce the values of that culture. Like it or not, Santa Claus is a cultural symbol. Our modern-day, Coke-drinking Santa has been loosely connected to the legendary St. Nicholas from the fourth century, but the connections are hard to decipher. I think of Santa as a modern-day American version of Robin Hood. The legend of Robin Hood is loosely connected to an actual historical figure and shows up in a variety of ancient English Literature. But somewhere along the line, Robin Hood became a cultural icon, representative of some of the virtues that English culture came to value. Even so, Santa Claus.
The American version of Santa Claus, which has become the default version worldwide (due to our status in the world), started with a loose attachment to the ancient St. Nicholas. Once popularized, it quickly detached from the historical figure. According to Stephen Nissenbaum in his book The Battle for Christmas, the very wealthy John Pintard spent an unhappy New Year’s Eve in 1820 as a band of ruffians stood outside his house making a very loud and peculiar form of music that involved banging pots and pans and singing off-key for several hours. His daughter was frightened by the sound of a back door to their house opening, and in the morning, it appeared that several of the hooligans had broken into their home. Such was the tradition of that time. The rich and powerful enjoyed much ease and leisure during the holidays, while the poor and destitute struggled to provide food for their families. To “even the score,” the poor would infiltrate wealthy neighborhoods late at night to harass the rich. If the poor couldn’t enjoy their luxury, they could at least rob the rich of their peace of mind.
To comfort his children, the next year Pintard commissioned a broadside of St. Nicholas, who he pictured as an Episcopal bishop. The broadside included a very large picture of the bishop, complete with halo and scepter, then in the next frame a picture of a happy, giggling girl with her apron full of presents and a sobbing, crying boy who looks as if he has just been chastised. Beneath the picture, a poem promises Saint Nicholas, “If you will now me something give, I’ll serve you ever while I live.”
Pintard belonged to a group of New Yorkers called the Knickerbockers, which included such imminent men as Washington Irving and Clement Clarke Moore, the author of “A Visit from St. Nicholas.” Pintard is credited with inventing Santa Claus, and Washington Irving with popularizing him. Initially, Pintard pictured St. Nicholas as a judge, come to reward the good and punish the evil. Nissenbaum describes Pintard’s Santa as a teaching tool for children.
Continue reading “Jesus Beats Santa”To be sure, this kind of Christmas ritual was designed largely for children, while Judgment Day was for adults. Christmas took place once a year, Judgment Day once an eternity. The “judge” at Christmas was St. Nicholas; on Judgment Day it was God himself. And both the rewards and the punishments meted out on Christmas – a cookie on the one hand, or a birch rod on the other – were far less weighty than those of eternal joy or eternal damnation. But the parallel was always there, and always meant to be there. Christmas was a child’s version of Judgment Day, and its ambiguous prospects of reward or punishment (like those of Judgment Day itself) were a means of regulating children’s behavior – and preparing them for the greater judgment that was to come.[1]
Stephen Nissenbaum, The Battle for Christmas: a Cultural History of America’s Most Cherished Holiday, p. 74
Continue reading “Jesus Beats Santa”To be sure, this kind of Christmas ritual was designed largely for children, while Judgment Day was for adults. Christmas took place once a year, Judgment Day once an eternity. The “judge” at Christmas was St. Nicholas; on Judgment Day it was God himself. And both the rewards and the punishments meted out on Christmas – a cookie on the one hand, or a birch rod on the other – were far less weighty than those of eternal joy or eternal damnation. But the parallel was always there, and always meant to be there. Christmas was a child’s version of Judgment Day, and its ambiguous prospects of reward or punishment (like those of Judgment Day itself) were a means of regulating children’s behavior – and preparing them for the greater judgment that was to come.[1]
Stephen Nissenbaum, The Battle for Christmas: a Cultural History of America’s Most Cherished Holiday, p. 74
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