Who the heck is Santa Klaus anyway?

Question

I thought Christmas was about Jesus??

Answer 1

Christmas IS about Jesus. At least it was originally. Unfortunatley, as is the case with all originally Christian holidays, it has become secularized and commercialized. I believe this is because a lot of people don't want to admit that God exists or at least that He is the one who is really in charge of their lives and all that exists. They would rather be their own god and do their own thing. Which by the way is the origin and root cause of all sin and destructive behaviour and thoughts. One way to be your own god that people have come up with is to invent substitutes for the real God. This has gone on throughout history. We still do it today. Even though you won't find many modern Americans worshiping statues or other physical idols at altars, there are a lot of people in the U.S. and around the world who worship false gods that they can see and understand and in some ways control. These include money, actors, singers, and even made up characters including Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy etc.

We REALLY should stop telling our kids that Santa Claus (or whatever you want to call him) is real. God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit are real and are the only ones we should revere. If you must have Santa Claus in Christmas, then tell the kids the story of Nicholas the generous bishop of Turkey and encourage them to follow his example and give generously to others in need. That is who the real Santa Claus was. Not all this nonsense about flying sleighs, elves, the North Pole, going donw chimneys and especially not the tradition of selfishly hoping Santa brings you something for Christmas.

Better yet, teach kids about the birth of Christ at Christmas and how His life was the greatest gift that can ever be given.

Then there was a bishop in what is now modern Turkey, named Nicholas who anonomously left food and sometimes candy at the homes of poor people. He did this mainly in the winter and especially around Dec 25. He was made a saint by the Catholic Church after his death. Stories of him were told and imbellished and sometimes just made up. Over time, as his story spread around Europe, it was translated into different languages and his name gradually got changed. He is still known in some parts of the world as St. Nicholas. In others he is called "Father Christmas", Santa Claus, Saint Nick etc. The "Santa" part comes from the fact that in Spanish and some other latin languages, it is the word that translates into "Saint". The Klaus or Claus part is a variation of Nicholas.

The version of the Santa Claus story Americans are most familiar with has it's origins in the Poem "Twas the Night Before Christmas".

Check out Wikipedia for the full story of his origin.

Answer 2

Yes, Christmas is about Jesus. But Santa Klaus comes from a saint in russia who sent gifts to children all over town on Christmas day. So we do celebrate the birth of Jesus, but we add a lil bit of Santa Klaus into it ;)

Answer 3

Santa clause has roots form the times of paganism, as does christmas. Look it up, you would not belive it. It is not something they teach, but the day of christmass first of all has nothing to do with the birth of jesus. First off, there is no where in the bible that states a day, even a month when he was born. The fact is that chritmas day is on Dec 25 is because at the time, not sure when, but at the time when the then growing religion of christianity was taking shape, they wanted to convert all the people who belived in pagin gods, which was a huge majority of the people. Most pagins celibrated in the end of winter for a few reasons, first and most important was the start of winter, and as you can imagine, at the time, winter was a very scary thing, if you did not have enogh food, or if it was a very bad or long winter, it would mean certain death, so they celebrated their gods for a good winter by giving offerings to apeese them. If the christians were to convert these people, they need to make it as small an amount of transition as possible, thus the end of december dates. Santa clause mostly has his roots in an old Dutch custom if I remember corectly. This man, also know as San Nicolaas , would bring gifts to all the childern of the town he lived in around christmass time, this was really the begining of the gift giving tradition. Now, I belive in the mid to late 1800's, during the victorian period, they belived that they needed to be very charitable during christmas time, they would also give presents to eachother and would actually have large parties to celebrate. Their would be stories about saint nick, but the story varied depending on the person, some times he was an elf like creature, all the way to a big fat drunk guy. But near the end of the 1800's the man who wrote the night before christmass (I can't remember his name off hand) gave a face to Saint Nick, as we know him now. I know that there is a lot more to this story, and I will try to send a link for this answer if I can find one, but there are a lot of christian holidays that are along the same lines, converting pagans to christianity, and ironically, only became as popular as we know them today during the 1800's and the victorian period. Like I said, you have to look this up, it is really interesting. Oh, and I know a lot of people are very sensitive about their religion, but this by no means is an attempt to shoot down any christian holidays, as I said, there are no specific dates for any of the events in the bible. The first christians only made these dates to get more people to join the christian faith by apealing to the pagans with only small changes in there belifes and celibrations, and when you think about it, it is good they did, or we may all be pagains right now!

Sorry about the bad spelling, spell check is not working!

Answer 4

Goody, something that I have the complete answer to.

Santa Claus is derived from the Dutch Santa Nicholus, which is Saint Nicholous. SN was a Catholic Turk that almost perfectally embodied Jesus' teachings in every aspect of his life. He gave when he really had nothing to give, and loved everyone no matter who they were. When he died he became the patron saint of Children, Sailors, Virgins, and many other people. Therefore by beleiving in Santa, in essance you are believing that the teachings and practices of Jesus are able to be embodied even in this day that we live.

Answer 5

Some old dude who gave gifts to people a long long time ago. Christmas is about Jesus and I do wish people would stop playing these fake Santa games with kids. It's okay to tell the story about him and share in gifts, but everything about the Lord is being turned into one big joke. It's stupid and I can't stand it that people are so blind to what is happening.

Answer 6

Santa Klaus is based on Saint Nicholas. He secretly left presents to needy children at nights and that's how the idea evolved.

Answer 7

Santa Clause was based on St. Nicholaus of Bari. He was a Bishop in Turkey.

It is said that he saved the daughters of a poor man from going into prostitution(for their douries)by thowing gold coins down into their stockings that hung by the fire place.

He is also credited from saving some boys who had been kidnapped.

St. Nicholaus is the Patron saint of children, & although we usually associate him with Christmas Eve, his Feast Day falls earlier in December on the 6'th.

Answer 8

Saint Nicolas. He gave toys to needy children in the Spirit of Christ Jesus. Many people do this, they give to those less fortunate. So, Saint Nicholas became associated with Christmas.

Answer 9

It depends on your religion of choice. Not all religions celebrate Jesus birth on Christmas, because the Bible does not tell the exact birth date of Christ.
As far as Santa goes, it used to be mom and dad. Now it's me. :) I liked it much better when it was mom and dad.....:)

Answer 10

he's a fat jolly guy in read with white curly hair who slides down chimneys to deliver presents. it is about Jesus. but like everything else, there's more aspects of Christmas than one. hopefully Jesus is the most important.

Merry Christmas!