Santa Claus 🎅

When you were a kid did you ever wonder if Santa Claus real or not ? Because I do believe in Santa Claus when I was a kid, and here’s some interesting facts about Santa Claus 
1. He was real... sort of 
Folklore may have turned Santa Claus into a toy distributor who mans a sleigh led by eight flying reindeer, but he is actually based, loosely on real person. Born around the year of 270, St. Nicholas was a bishop of Myra, a town in what is now Turkey. He earned a reputation as an anonymous gifts giver, by paying the dowries of impoverished girls and handling out treats and coins to children - often leaving them in their shoes, set out the night for that very purpose. Since his death, Nicholas has been canonized as the patron saint of children.
2. He’s only been ‘Santa Claus’ for 200 years.
A Dutch tradition kept St. Nicholas story alive in form of Sinterklass, a bishop who traveled from house to house to deliver treats to children on the night of Dec, 5. The first anglicizing of the name of Santa Claus was I a story that appeared in New York City newspaper in 1773.
3. Satire first Santa down to chimney. 
In his satiric 1809 book of A History of New York, Washington Irving did away with the characterization of Santa Claus as a “lanky bishop”, says Whipps. Instead, Irving described Santa as a portly, bearded man who smokes a pipe. Irving’s story also marked as the first time Santa did slid down the chimney.
4. T’was the Night Before Christmas introduced the reindeer.
Clement Moore’s 1822 poem A Visit From Saint Nicholas - which now more commonly referred as “ T’was Before Christmas “ - was first published anonymously in the Troy, N.Y.  Sentinel on Dec 23, 1823. The 56- line poem introduced and popularized many of Santa’s defining characteristic - chiefly , that he drove a sleigh guide by eight tiny reindeer.
5. Coca-Cola created the modern Santa Claus. 
When Father Christmas first began showing up in illustration, he wore many different colored robes : green, purple, blue and brown among others. Beginning in the late 1800’s it became popular to outfit Santa in a red suit. Artist a Louis Prang depicted him that way in a series of Christmas card in 1885, and The New York Times reported on red garments in 1927. But the modern image of Santa Claus as a jolly man in red suit seared into American pop culture in 1931, when artist Haddon Sundblom illustrated that way for widely- circulated campaign for Coca-Cola.
6. The department store Santa is a 120-year-old tradition. 
In 1890, Massachusetts businessman James Edgar became the first department sore Santa, according to The Smoking Jacket. Edgar was credited with coming up with the idea of dressing up in Santa Claus costume as marketing tool. Children from all over the state dragged their parents to Edgar’s small dry food store in Brockton, and tradition was born.
7. Santa was bachelor until late 1800’s. 
The first mentioned of a spouse for Santa Claus was in 1849 short story A Christmas Legend by James Rees. Over the next several years, the idea of Mrs. Claus found its way into several literary publications, like The Yale Literary Magazine and Harper’s Magazine. But it wasn’t until Katherine Lee Bates widely-circulated 1889 poem Goody Santa Claus on a Sleigh Ride that Santa’s wife was popularized.

Happy Holiday everyone ...