Why Santa Claus Looks That Way

The biggest influences to our image of Santa Claus came from a 19^th century poem and an advertising campaign that started in the 20^th century. 

In 1823, Henry Livingston Jr. published his poem “Account of a Visit From St. Nicholas.”  The poem is commonly known by its first sentence “Twas the Night Before Christmas.”  It gave us a physical description of the magical elf as well as the first mention of a sleigh pulled by eight flying reindeer.

The poem was plagiarized by Clement Clark Moore who included the work in a collection of poems he published in 1844.  Moore was credited as the original author until just a few years ago.  Copies of the Christmas classic crediting Moore as the author are in circulation everywhere.

Livingston’s poem described St. Nicholas with a broad face and a little round belly. The poet also wrote that St. Nicholas was jolly and plump, “a right jolly old elf.” He was dressed in fur from head to foot. The red color of Santa’s clothes was not established until several years later. Livingston mentioned the classic sack of toys St. Nick carried on his back and his long, white beard.    

St. Nicholas of Myra was a Greek bishop who devoted his life to helping and protecting poor people. He spent several years in prison under the reign of Roman Emperor Diocletian who persecuted Christians.   Diocletian’s murderous reign ended after Emperor Constantine came into power. St. Nicholas was released from prison after Constantine embraced Christianity in 313 AD.

 St. Nicholas was credited with several miracles that led to his sainthood after he died December 6, 343 AD. December sixth became a time of Christian celebration that changed to our Christmas Day on the 25th.

The idea of downplaying the religious connotation of getting presents and festive celebrations during Christmas was first mentioned two years before Livingston’s poem by an anonymous author who proposed using the Santa Claus character in a poem called “The Children’s Friend.” Santa Claus slowly replaced St. Nicholas as the main focus for Christmas celebrations. The names St. Nicholas and Santa Claus are often used interchangeably.

Ancient paintings and wood carvings of the Santa Claus character often show a tall, thin man dressed in animal skins. Some cultures warned children that they would receive harsh punishment from Santa for not behaving properly. Society rules of today would denounce such punishment as child abuse.

The Coca-Cola Co. solidified the image of a red-suited, jolly old elf in an advertising campaign that started in 1923. Artists painted a somewhat unfriendly-looking Santa to advertise Coca-Cola in portraits made in 1923 and 1930. In 1931, artist Haddon Sundblom painted the image of a friendly character recognized today as Santa Claus.

Sundblom painted Santa Claus wearing a bright, red suit.  The character looked chubby and very happy in the artist’s many paintings he made for the soft drink company. That depiction of Santa became the image our society has recognized for more than 80 years.

 

 

 

Thank you for reading this blog.  Please visit this site again after the first of the year.  I wish you and yours a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.      

 

               

 

 

 

 

               

   

                            

 

The Evolution of Christmas Carols

The subject of this week’s column concerns the history of Christmas carols. Carol singing is among the oldest traditions in the celebration of Christmas. However, many years after the use of singing came into fashion for Christmas celebrations the tradition came out of fashion for almost 200 years.

Queen Victoria and husband Prince Albert revived the celebration of music during Christmas shortly before the middle of the 19th century. The Victorian Era brought us many of the traditions, including the Christmas tree, that came to America from the influences of the British queen and her German husband.

The original use of singing in church that progressed to the carols we use today came from St. Francis of Assisi. He introduced religious music into church services during the 12th century. The music was somber to fit the strict settings found in religious rites. Church choirs usually sang Christmas hymns in acapella style. Instruments weren’t used except for some percussion that sometimes included bells. 

Carols we sing today are full of joyful and merry themes. They are much lighter and uplifting than what people sang during the days of St. Francis. Ironically, the origin of the word “carol” resembles today’s interpretation of the joyous music. The word carol is a derivation of the French word caroller, which means dancing around in a circle. Carols eventually became to include music and lyrics with the dancing. That led to our Christmas caroling.

It was approximately 175 years ago that our Christmas traditions were impacted by the Victorian Era and the influences of the works of Charles Dickens.

Thank you for reading this blog. We plan to have one more Christmas tradition before we return to our explanation of fiction writing. That will be near the New Year.

Victorian Christmas Tree

We're resting the instructional theme of short stories this week to get into an appropriate Christmas post.

The popular practice of using a Christmas tree to celebrate the holidays comes from the Victorian Era.
 
The Christmas tree has German origins.  It came into England's society after 1840 when Queen Victoria married Prince Albert who was German. He brought the tradition of the Christmas tree to England. The "London Illustrated News" published a full page illustration of the royal family seated around their tree at Windsor Castle in 1848.

 
It was accompanied by a detailed description of the decorated tree.  It was about eight feet high with six tiers of branches. Each branch held up to a dozen candles. An angel was placed on top of the tree.
 
Obviously a fire hazard, candles were lit only when someone supervised the tree.
 
Decorations were often edible snacks such as cookies. Presents were arranged around the tree with the recipients' names on the colorful packages.
 
The 1848 publication of the illustration came to America where the idea of using Christmas trees became popular.  Before this time, Christmas in America was formal and lacked the festive atmosphere it has today.  A happy feeling dominated Christmas in America and lasts today from the influence of the Christmas tree and the royal couple of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.
 
Charles Dickens' portrayal of Christmas in "A Christmas Carol" also influenced people in America to include fun celebrations to be part of  the religious season. We talked about Dickens' skilled writing last week.

The Christmas tree became the center of American family celebration indirectly from Germany through England.
 
Thank you for reading this blog. Visit us again next week when we talk about the origin of Christmas carols.

Story Composition

This blog is designed to give short story writers information and encouragement in creating interesting stories. Fans of the short story form of fiction can use the methods explained here to better appreciate the stories they read. Like many types of fiction, short story structure can be analyzed in three easy steps. The one, two and three parts of a story are the introduction, middle and ending. It's easy to list the basic three parts of story writing, but it's another matter to execute them into a interesting story.

The introduction centers on the main character. We find who the character, or protagonist, is by actions he or she shows. Here is where it is critical to follow the important mantra of writing fiction--show me, don't tell me. This idea is preached constantly by creative writing teachers to their students. It means that the character must show his or her character and personality by reacting to various situations.

A good example of showing instead of telling comes from Charles Dickens in his popular classic tale "A Christmas Carol." We see the main character Ebenezer Scrooge talk about his hatred of the Christmas season. He grudgingly grants his clerk a day off for Christmas and complains he is being robbed by his clerk for one day's wages. His nephew invites the old curmudgeon for Christmas festivities. Scrooge rejects the invitation and insults the young man. While walking home, he scares a child who sang carols on the street. You should get the idea that Ebenezer is a very unlikable soul who hates people.

He encounters conflict in the middle of the story when ghosts of his past, present and future show him how dreadful his life is. This is the story conflict that affects Scrooge into changing.

Third part is the ending. In Dickens tale, Ebenezer repents about his selfish actions. His life changes for the better. In each part of the story, we see Ebenezer acting and changing. There is no long explanation (we call it exposition) of who he is or what he does. We see it in the story. "A Christmas Carol" is longer than a short story. It's usually referred to as novella. It is very useful, however, in it's excellent composition, and we will refer to it again in another column.  Also from now until Christmas, we will have interesting information about the origin of the Christmas tree in America and the influence of the Victorian Era on caroling in this country.

 Thank you for taking time to read this. Look for the next installment in about one week.