Christmas, who had figured in the Mummer’s plays probably since the pre-Christian era.
Over the ensuing years the process continued with Father Christmas/Santa Claus acquiring characteristics, which increasingly separated him from his original ancestry. Save in the country of Holland, where the tradition of St. Nicholas is still celebrated. Within time the Saint is no longer generally associated with the sixth of December, but to the Christmas holiday on December twenty-fifth; and his abode has moved to the frozen north, whence he travels on a flying sledge drawn by a team of flying reindeer. Today Santa Claus remains the bearer of gifts, but most idiosyncratically he enters homes by the way of the chimney and leaving, ‘traveling upward with fire and smoke..”.
“And a Merry Xmas to all…”
NOTE:
1) The reindeer remains important to the economy of the Laplanders of Northern Europe, but another source of income augment it. It is tourism as it is the place much visited that is supposed to be the place where Santa Claus lives; and at Xmas time the post office there is inundated with letters by children to that jolly figure.
2) In the days when open fireplaces were usual, children would write their requests to Father Christmas on pieces of paper then thrown on the fire when they burned to ash and allowed to drift up the chimney and float on the winds, that it was hoped their petitions would reach him before Xmas.
Former correspondent for the Continental News Service, now retired.
Find More Pagan History Articles