Old Fashioned Christmas: Part 3 (December 13, 2025)

by Scott Sosebee

The origins of the Christmas holiday are religious, but it has evolved into a more secular holiday. Nothing reflects that more than a recent Pew Research Center Poll in which American adults named Santa Claus as the most popular cultural symbol of the Christmas season (for what it’s worth, the Christmas Tree was second, and Nativity scenes/Christ’s birth was third). That is not that surprising to me because if gift-giving has become the most popular activity of Christmas, then it is only natural that Santa Claus, with his round-the-world visit bringing toys to children story, would become the most pervasive icon of the season. Also, unlike the Christian symbols of the holiday, in a diverse nation such as the United States, Santa Claus is easily adaptable across the cultural and ethnic spectrum.

But who is Santa Claus? How has he become a part of the American Christmas season, and why do we picture him as we do? Just like the Christmas Tree, Christmas cards, and gift-giving, Santa—or “Old St. Nick”—began as an Old World portrayal and evolved into an distinctly American incarnation in the United States. The original “Santa Claus,” Saint Nicholas, was born in Patara, Greece almost three hundred years after Christ, but he lived most of his life in Myra in modern Turkey, a part of the Roman Empire in the earliest days of Christianity during the times of the persecution of Christians. Nicholas gained a reputation as a fiery and defiant defender of the faith who spent years in prison and endured torture to renounce his faith. He was a part of Emperor Constantine’s movement to bring Christianity to the Roman Empire, and signed the Nicene Creed. He died sometime in the mid-fourth century, but after his death would become Saint Nicholas, the patron saint of children, merchants, and pawnbrokers, perhaps the perfect combination of a man who would become associated with gifts, and for several hundreds of years, approximately 1200 to 1500, he “brought” gifts to children during the times of his Feast Day, December 6.

Christianity underwent drastic changes after the Protestant Reformation, and one of those was St. Nicholas falling out of favor. That presented a conundrum to Christians of the era: who would bring gifts to children during the season? Since Christians had adopted December as the symbolic birth of Christ (most scholars agree that Jesus was actually born in late spring or early summer), the Christ child became an alternative, but his “carrying capacity” was limited, so St. Nicholas became Jesus’ partner. He was often portrayed as the purveyor of discipline associated with Christmas gifts, the one who dished out the punishment if children had not behaved.

The image of St. Nicholas softened through the years, and eventually be became, once again, the bearer of Christmas gifts in approximately the mid-1600s. As for what he looked like, the most common image became one born in The Netherlands, where St. Nicholas was called “Sinterklaas,” and that was the “St. Nick” who made his way to the New World. He was tall and thin, had a scruffy beard, and carried a staff. However, Christmas in early American also began to change. The holiday was suppressed or sedate in some colonies, and in some places like New England actually banned. Later, after the United States was born, it evolved into one that only faintly referred to its Christian origins, and became one symbolized by alcohol, gambling, and revelry. There was, except in isolated communities such as German and Dutch hamlets, no gift bearer and no St. Nicholas.

That all began to change in the early 1820s thanks to poets, writers, and clergymen who sought to remake Christmas into one that stressed family, faith, and the joyful expressions of a season of peace. Such a desire revived St. Nicholas and the tradition of the old saint bearing gifts. Washington Irving, in his Knickerbocker’s History of New York, portrayed Nicholas, or as many were now referring to him, Santa Claus, an Anglicized version of the Dutch term, as a gentle, elderly man who smoked a pipe and delivered presents to “good girls and boys” in a flying wagon. An anonymous illustrated poem titled “The Children’s Friend” made Santa Claus firmly associated with Christmas and began to shape his modern appearance. It made him wholly secular with no religious overtones, but continued to have him bring gifts to “good boys and girls.” He delivered those presents in a wagon pulled by a single reindeer.

Irving and the 1821 poem may have set Santa on a certain course, but it would be another poem that firmly established the modern Santa Claus. Clement Clark Moore, in 1822, published his “A Visit From St. Nicholas,” also known as “The Night Before Christmas.” In the poem, Moore described Santa as a “jolly elf” dressed all in red who delivered toys in a sleigh pulled by “eight tiny reindeer.” Moore’s poem was a nationwide sensation—we would say today that it “went viral”—and Moore’s version of Santa became the accepted personification. The white fur and Santa as a full sized adult developed later in the century, but how we portray Santa today has only undergone one important transformation. The Coca Cola Company, in the 1920s, wanted to use the symbol of Christmas in an advertising campaign. They basically used the accepted version, but they added some enduring characteristics: they drew him as portly, with rosy cheeks and a big bag stuffed with toys. The Coca Cola version once again created a stir, and it is now—generally—how almost all depictions of Santa are drawn or portrayed.

So, from a first century Saint to a modern symbol of the season, Santa Claus has become the most iconic symbol of an American Christmas, and in fact a universal symbol since the American portrait of “Old St. Nick” is used all over, no matter what he is called in other places. Today is Christmas Eve, the night of the traditional visit, so kids all over East Texas had better get in bed and sleep tight. You don’t want to miss the visit from Old St. Nick!

The East Texas Historical Association provides this column as a public service. Scott Sosebee is a Professor of History at Stephen F. Austin State University and the Executive Director of the Association. He can be contacted at sosebeem@sfasu.edu or via www.easttexashistorical.org.