In 2010, Santa Claus is celebrating his 1,730th birthday! The original Nicholas was born in 280 A.D. in the small country of Lycia, which is now part of modern-day Turkey.

 

Nicholas became first a priest¹ and then a bishop² in the early Christian³ church. The very first paintings of him show Nicholas wearing the ceremonial robes of a Christian bishop - red trimmed with white. When we see "Santa's suit" today, we're seeing those same colors.

 

Nicholas became famous for gift-giving, usually to the poor. In the early fourth century a legend began to spread about Nicholas coming at night to the home of three poor girls who did not have dowries and therefore could not marry their fiancés. While the girls slept, Nicholas left gold coins in their stockings, which were drying by the fire. That's how our tradition of Santa filling stockings got its start.

 

Santa is known my many names all over the world. He became "Santa Claus" in America because many of the first English colonists⁴ to arrive to not celebrate Christmas; as Puritans they felt the holiday was disrespectful to Jesus. But their children saw the children of Dutch settlers receiving gifts from someone called "St. Nicholas." They thought the gift-giver's name was "Sinter Klass” and anglicized it further to "Santa Claus."

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