The 5th December, is the Eve of the Feast of St Nicholas.  The 5th and 6th December are times of much celebration for the excited children (and parents!) from many countries across Europe.  Saint Nicholas is due to make his arrival and give presents to the children of Europe. Parts of France, Italy, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Poland all celebrate, in different ways, this saint – known as the protector of children.

However, in England, as a consequence of Henry VIII’s break with Rome and the English Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century, it is no-longer the custom to celebrate Saint Nicholas on 6th December.  But before Henry VIII’s break with Rome in the 1530s, the feast of Saint Nicholas was celebrated in many towns and villages of England as part of the Catholic festivities of Yuletide and Christmas.

The legend of Saint Nicholas
The stories and legends of St Nicholas made their way into the exquisite and breath-taking illuminated manuscripts of medieval England.  One such legend is the tale of three children who had wandered away from their homes and got lost.  A wicked butcher lured the children, by now cold and hungry, into his shop where he attacked and murdered them, then pickled them in a large tub.  Fortunately Saint Nicholas saved them and brought them back to life – thus forever taking his place in legends as the protector of children.

Another story was that he saved sailors from drowning after their boat capsized. Thus becoming the patron of mariners.

Below is a selection of images of Saint Nicholas, the saviour of pickled children and drowning mariners.

Bishop Nicholas of Bari (or Myra)
By the 1400s, the illuminated manuscripts changed from showing the stories of the pickled children and drowned mariners. Instead, the exquisite medieval manuscripts shifted their focus to show St Nicholas in his bishopric finery.

Saint Nicholas and Boy Bishops
By medieval times, the Feast of Saint Nicholas on the 6th December was a firm part of English cultural life.  The feast was coupled with the medieval practice of electing young boys as bishops.  A boy from the local community was elected as the parish’s (or establishment’s) ‘Bishop’ on the Feast of St Nicholas and he replaced the authority of the real Bishop until Holy Innocents day (28th December).  (See my blog-post Boy Bishops & the Feast of St Nicholas for more details about this medieval custom).

In 1542, Henry VIII abolished the custom of having boys-bishops on Saint Nicholas’s feast day. It was probably around this period, with Henry VIII’s full-on attack on the Catholic cult of saints, that Saint Nicholas’s feast day itself was brought to an end.

The late Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries
During the reign of Elizabeth I, Christmas was still celebrated with great feasts, games, and the celebrations of the 12 Days of Christmas from 25th December until 6th January. But the celebrations were without Saint Nicholas.

Christmas itself was legally stopped during the Interregnum of the mid-seventeenth century.  In 1647, Christmas was officially banned with the Ordinance for Abolishing of Festivals. Deemed as a throwback to Catholic days and too full of Popery, frivolity, merry-making and gluttony, the Puritans didn’t want any part of Christmas.

However, it was during the Interregnum that we once again catch a glimpse of Saint Nicholas. Although by this time, calling him Saint Nicholas was far too much for Puritan sensibilities. Two satirical pamphlets about Christmas were published in the 1650s.  And, for the first time in literature, Father Christmas (aka Old Christmas) was named as such.

 

The 1658 woodcutting of Father Christmas clearly shows that by the mid-seventeenth century, he had already taken on the appearance that we know and love today. Who knows what colour his robe would have been if they had colour printing then! Would it be red? Or green? Or brown? Or purple…

Fortunately for us, when the monarchy was restored in 1660, Christmas was too.

References to Old Christmas are tantalising glimpsed in a small number of plays and pamphlets throughout the eighteenth century. But it wasn’t until the Victorian era that there was resurgence of the popularity of Father Christmas.

Charles Dickens and the Ghost of Christmas Present
The Victorian revival and obsession with Father Christmas was partly due to Charles Dickens’ 1843 story A Christmas Carol. His pen-portrait of the Ghost of Christmas Present along with the accompanying illustration by John Leech showed that Father Christmas was alive and very much kicking! Dickens described Scrooges’ encounter with the Ghost thus:

“I am the Ghost of Christmas Present,” said the Spirit. “Look upon me.”

Scrooge reverently did so. It was clothed in one simple green robe, or mantle, bordered with white fur. This garment hung so loosely on the figure, that its capacious breast was bare, as if disdaining to be warded or concealed by any artifice. Its feet, observable beneath the ample folds of the garment, were also bare; and on its head it wore no other covering than a holly wreath, set here and there with shining icicles. Its dark brown curls were long and free; free as its genial face, its sparkling eye, its open hand, its cheery voice, its unconstrained demeanour, and its joyful air. Girded round its middle was an antique scabbard; but no sword was in it, and the ancient sheath was eaten up with rust.

Early Twentieth Century Father Christmas
Dickens described the Ghost as having a green robe.  We’re not quite there with our modern day Father Christmas! By the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, Father Christmas had a variety of different coloured robes. This was before that well-known gigantic soft-drinks company unilaterally made him a little rotund beaming fella with red robes trimmed with white fur!…

Below are a selection of early twentieth postcards showing Saint Nicholas/Father Christmas/Santa Claus in a wide variety of robes. Notice that even when he was dressed in red, the early 20th century Father Christmas was a tall and lean chap. Not the little fat fella of today!

Father Christmas had nearly fully transformed. From being a pre-Reformation Catholic saint and the saviour of pickled children, he was now a tall angular man with a fur trimmed robe, who brought gifts and presents to good children throughout the world.

Nearly transformed… But not quite…

Modern day Father Christmas
The Father Christmas that we all know and love today is the consequence of a massive advertising campaign by that well known soft drinks company. In the 1930s, the artist Haddon Sundblom, created the very familiar image of Santa for Coca-Cola.  Below is “Somebody Knew I Was Coming” and the basis for the company’s advertising material during the 1930s/1940s at Christmas.

Sundblom based his Santa on the 1822 poem by Clement Clark Moore

‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all thro’ the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;
The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugar plums danced in their heads

Saint Nicholas’ metamorphism into Father Christmas (aka Santa Claus) was complete! Although, strictly-speaking Santa’s red-robe wasn’t because it was Coca-Cola’s corporate colours. Or was it?

His red-robes had long been established before Sundblom’s creativity, as seen in the early twentieth century postcards. But just maybe, by using their corporate colours, Coca-Cola stopped all the other brown/blue/purple/white robed Father Christmases!

Looking at Sundblom’s image and the ones above showing the saintly bishop, it occurred to me that six hundred years after the beautiful illuminated manuscripts of the middle ages, Father Christmas’ right hand is still raised in a form of benediction.

 

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