On the origins of Santa

[Potoooooooo]

 

[Mageth]

Futurama got it right...

 

[gmbteach]

Nope - Sorry - you are both wrong.

My Dad is Santa.

Allow me to prove it:

Santa is a big fat (usually) jolly man who likes to dispense presents.

My dad is a big fat (sometimes) jolly man who likes to dispense presents.

Therefore - my dad is Santa.


Bribes for appropriate presents can be delivered to GMBTEACH (aka Santa's daughter) at 123 Xyz St, Somewhereville, Australia.

 

[Jayjay]

I for one think Santa is real. But everyone in the world is naughty.

 

[gmbteach]

I for one think Santa is real. But everyone in the world is naughty.

I was telling angelo that when he opened his present early. He doesn't believe me. My dad was really mad when he found out angelo was naughty. Coal for him.

 

[Potoooooooo]

 

[Mageth]

I believe twins research studies show that nobody is born Jolly!

 

[dystopian]

The OP is both right and wrong.

Santa DID ultimately originated with Odin/Wodan; however Santa Clause didn't arrive in America through the Vikings but rather the Dutch. It's pretty well established that English colonists adopted the Dutch tradition of "Sinterklaas" (which can ultimately be traced back to Germanic paganism) from their Dutch counterparts. The name became bastardized as Santa Clause, and the date was moved from December 5th to Christmas.

Because those English bastards moved the date, and because Coca-Cola reinvented him as a jolly fat guy instead of as a stern gangly man (although keeping the color scheme), Santa Claus was then introduced back here. Meaning we technically get visited by Santa twice in december (WE ARE THE CHOSEN PEOPLE); although to avoid confusion, he's literally called Christmas Man here.

 

[Potoooooooo]

 

[Draconis]

If Santa lives at the north pole, did it get a bit wet up there until the polar ice cap formed?

And I wonder if he goes to visit his neighbour Superman sometimes?

 

[fast]

We learn as children that he is real. We learn as teenagers that he isn't. We learn as adults (well, some of us anyway) that he is real. Well, two out of three ain't too bad. I'm going with he is as real as he ever was.

 

[George S]

The myth of Santa Clause is skeptic training. Your parents told you to "believe in" Santa, but it was all a game to them; children playing the fool. Then they told you to "believe in" <their favorite god/theology>. Is this parallel apt? I played my role in the game for years, pretending to "believe." Good training for attending church. Fitting in is important. So important the I expect a large percent of church-goers are there for the social connections -- playing let's pretend.

 

[Politesse]

The Santa mythos has about as much to do with traditional Norse Paganism as it does to Christianity; it's really an American creation, with a typically syncretic blend of many parent traditions.

 

[Potoooooooo]

The Santa mythos has about as much to do with traditional Norse Paganism as it does to Christianity; it's really an American creation, with a typically syncretic blend of many parent traditions.

Well, there are other theories

 

[steve_bank]

Ignorant peasants!!! The popular American tradition traces to a 19th century poem The Night Before Christmas.



https://www.huffpost.com/entry/twas-the-night-before-christmas_n_801194

https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Visit_from_St._Nicholas

"A Visit from St. Nicholas" is a poem by Clement Clarke Moore. It was first published anonymously on December 23, 1823 in the Troy Sentinel, an American newspaper. It is also known as "The Night Before Christmas" and "'Twas the Night Before Christmas" from its first line. The poem is largely responsible for the way many people think of Santa Claus. It describes his physical appearance, the night of his visit, his sleigh, the number and names of his reindeer, and the tradition that he brings toys to children.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Nicholas

Saint Nicholas of Myra[a] (traditionally 15 March 270 – 6 December 343),[3][4] also known as Nicholas of Bari, was an early Christian bishop of the ancient Greek maritime city of Myra in Asia Minor (Ancient Greek: Μύρα, modern-day Demre, Turkey) during the time of the Roman Empire.[7][8] Because of the many miracles attributed to his intercession, he is also known as Nicholas the Wonderworker.[c] Saint Nicholas is the patron saint of sailors, merchants, archers, repentant thieves, prostitutes, children, brewers, pawnbrokers, and students in various cities and countries around Europe. His reputation evolved among the faithful, as was common for early Christian saints, and his legendary habit of secret gift-giving gave rise to the traditional model of Santa Claus ("Saint Nick") through Sinterklaas.
Very little is known about the historical Saint Nicholas. The earliest accounts of his life were written centuries after his death and contain many legendary elaborations. He is said to have been born in the Greek seaport of Patara, Lycia in Asia Minor to wealthy Christian parents.[9] In one of the earliest attested and most famous incidents from his life, he is said to have rescued three girls from being forced into prostitution by dropping a sack of gold coins through the window of their house each night for three nights so their father could pay a dowry for each of them. Other early stories tell of him calming a storm at sea, saving three innocent soldiers from wrongful execution, and chopping down a tree possessed by a demon. In his youth, he is said to have made a pilgrimage to Egypt and the Palestine area. Shortly after his return, he became Bishop of Myra. He was later cast into prison during the persecution of Diocletian, but was released after the accession of Constantine. An early list makes him an attendee at the First Council of Nicaea in 325, but he is never mentioned in any writings by people who were actually at the council. Late, unsubstantiated legends claim that he was temporarily defrocked and imprisoned during the Council for slapping the heretic Arius. Another famous late legend tells how he resurrected three children, who had been murdered and pickled in brine by a butcher planning to sell them as pork during a famine.
Fewer than 200 years after Nicholas's death, the St. Nicholas Church was built in Myra under the orders of Theodosius II over the site of the church, where he had served as bishop and Nicholas's remains were moved to a sarcophagus in that church. In 1087, while the Greek Christian inhabitants of the region were subjugated by the newly arrived Muslim Seljuk Turks, and soon after their church was declared to be in schism by the Catholic church, a group of merchants from the Italian city of Bari removed the major bones of Nicholas's skeleton from his sarcophagus in the church without authorization and brought them to their hometown, where they are now enshrined in the Basilica di San Nicola. The remaining bone fragments from the sarcophagus were later removed by Venetian sailors and taken to Venice during the First Crusade. His relics in Bari are said to exude a miraculous watery substance known as "manna" or "myrrh",[attribution needed] which some members of the faithful regard as possessing supernatural powers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinterklaas

Sinterklaas (Dutch pronunciation: [ˌsɪntərˈklaːs]) or Sint-Nicolaas (Dutch pronunciation: [sɪnt ˈnikoːlaːs] (listen)) is a legendary figure based on Saint Nicholas, patron saint of children. Other names for the figure include De Sint ("The Saint"), De Goede Sint ("The Good Saint"), and De Goedheiligman ("The Good Holy Man") in Dutch; Saint Nicolas in French; Sinteklaas in West Frisian; Sinterklaos in Limburgs; Saint-Nikloi in West Flemish; Kleeschen and Zinniklos in Luxembourgish; and Sankt Nikolaus or Nikolaus in German.
The feast of Sinterklaas celebrates the name day of Saint Nicholas on 6 December. The feast is celebrated annually with the giving of gifts on St. Nicholas' Eve (5 December) in the Netherlands and on the morning of 6 December, Saint Nicholas Day, in Belgium, Luxembourg and northern France (French Flanders, Lorraine and Artois). The tradition is also celebrated in territories of the former Dutch Empire, including Aruba and Curaçao.
Sinterklaas is one of the sources of the popular Christmas icon of Santa Claus.[1]

 

[Horatio Parker]

All wrong.

Santa was a Siberian shaman.

https://realitysandwich.com/238049/shaman-claus-the-shamanic-origins-of-christmas/

In this wintry-wonderland, if you go searching for Santa, you may not find him or his Elvin factory – but you will find groups of indigenous people native to what we know as Siberia. Among these cultures are the northern Tungusic people, known as the Evenki. The Evenki were predominantly hunter-gatherers as well as reindeer herders. Their survival depended largely upon the health and vitality of their domesticated reindeer. The reindeer provided the Evenki and other northern tribes with everything from clothing, housing material, wares and tools from the bones and antlers, transportation (yes, they ride reindeer!), milk, as well as cultural and religious inspiration.

A significant aspect of the shamanism practiced in this part of the world during that time was linked to Amanita muscaria, also known as the Fly Agaric mushroom. This mushroom is more widely accepted in the modern world as the Alice in Wonderland mushroom. It was held very sacred by these ancient people, and was used by the shaman and others for ceremonial and spiritual purposes. Amanitas – as you can tell by the pictures – range from brightly red and white to golden orange and yellow. They only grow beneath certain types of evergreen trees. They form a symbiotic relationship with the roots of the tree, the exchange of which allows them to grow. One of the reported ancient beliefs was that the mushroom was actually the fruit of the tree. Due to the lack of seed, it is also commonly held that Fly Agaric was divine – a kind of virginally birthed sacred plant.

Although intensely psychoactive, Amanitas are also toxic. One way to reduce the toxicity and increase the psychoactive potency was to simply dry them. When out collecting the mushrooms, people would pick a bunch of them under the evergreen trees and lay them out along the branches while continuing to pick the mushrooms beneath other trees. The result was something that looked very reminiscent of a modern Christmas tree: evergreen trees whose branches are dotted with bright red, roundish “decorations” – in this case the sacred mushrooms. At the end of the session, the shaman or harvester would go around to each of their mushroom stashes and put them all in one large sack… a large sack?!! Remind you of anything?! Not only this, as the story of the tradition goes, the shaman would then, carrying this large sack, visit the homes of his or her people and deliver the mushrooms to them. They would then continue the drying process by hanging them in a sock, near the fire!

 

[Potoooooooo]

No, he is a relic hominid
https://www.deviantart.com/concavenator/art/Noctalfus-borealis-425646217

On the left: a young scandinavian elf (Noctalfus borealis) inspecting a bowl of reindeer milk. On the right: a mature klaas.

Creeping like shadows in the dark arctic night, lit only by the glow of the aurora borealis, scandinavian elves are the personification of ancient fears.

Distribution: During the last glacial maximum, as attested both by cave art and by the fossil record, the scandinavian elf was present with several subspecies from Brittany to Korea; today, the last surviving subspecies, N. b. balticus, is restricted to few refugia in eastern Fennoscandia. They used to thrive in the vast boreal forests, often probing the wasteland at the feet of the glaciers, hunting and gathering any sort of food, from pinecones to small rodents. Troops of elves contain usually 10-15 members, mostly the harem and children of a single alpha male.
Physical appearance: Scandinavian elves are unusually slender compared to other creatures of the tundra, as they rely on agility to hunt and avoid predators. This forces them to consume a great amount of energy, and thus to keep their population density extremely low. The arms are longer than the legs, and retain grasping fingers, causing them to knuckle-walk, while the feet are very long and human-like. The face is relatively flat and equipped with large eyes, but the mouth is armed with powerful all-purpose teeth, like those of a hog. They can move surprisingly quickly, both on the trees and in the open ground.
The alpha male is significantly different from other individuals: it weighs over twice as much and it has an enormous chest covered by a white beard/mane. While it's significantly less agile than the others, it exceeds them by far in brute strength; although rarely seen, the Sami people call it Klaas, from the name of a fearsome warlord that reigned in that region centuries ago. Often the vernal thaw sees a newly matured klaas battling the former head of the troop; the loser is cast away and rarely survives long, unless it manages to conquer another troop.
Classification: While scandinavian elves are definitely primates and most probably apes, their further classification is highly controversial; recent studies have linked their ancestry to the enigmatic Denisova hominins, which implies an extremely recent divergence from the human lineage. Although elves appear to be more intelligent than any other non-human animal in their environment, they're not known to use extensively tools outside of folklore.
Interaction with humans: Usually, elves aren't very dangerous to adult humans, which they learned to avoid, but they're fiercely territorial, and often attack newcomers. Lithuanian sagas proudly recount how the elves of Vilnius stopped an invasion by the Teutonic Knights by crippling their horses, while Karelian elves are said to have hindered the advance of Soviet troops during the Winter War. It's likely, however, that these accounts have been exaggerated - very few attacks to humans have actually been recorded.
Hungry troops of elves have been feared by the reindeer herders of Finland since the Neolithic, as they often steal calves. They're adept hunters, and they easily kill small animals such as lemmings or ptarmigans; however, they rarely find sugar-rich foods, and they has been observed to abandon a fresh prey to carry away such foods. For this reason, the people of Lapland have the custom, during the long nights around the solstice of winter, to leave reindeer milk and sweet bread near the doorstep, to have the elves spare their livestock and sometimes leave abandoned preys. Local legends claim these to be "gifts" from the Klaas, identified with ancient kings and even bishops from Eastern Europe - likely a legacy of the traumatic christianization of the Baltic people in the Middle Ages.

 

[Potoooooooo]