Discover more about the origins of Santa Claus and how festive traditions have carried their way throughout history
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Every December, a bearded man in red crosses international borders and sovereign airspace without passport or permit. It’s a story that feels timeless,
yet the origins of Santa Claus reveal a surprisingly modern tale – one shaped by migration, politics and soft power.
Our modern-day Santa wasn’t born in folklore alone, but in the politics of belonging. Early Christian stories of Saint Nicholas of Myra, the fourth-century bishop known for his generosity and miracles, merged over centuries with northern European winter traditions.
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In Britain, the figure of Father Christmas embodied festivity and merriment rather than religion. In the Netherlands, Sinterklaas brought gifts to good children each December. When Dutch settlers arrived in New York, these traditions fused – and in the process, something distinctly American began to take shape.
In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, New York’s civic elite helped formalise the new Santa. Merchant John Pintard adopted St Nicholas as the emblem of the New York Historical Society, presenting him as a guardian of civic virtue and cultural continuity. In 1809, the writer Washington Irving reimagined the figure in his satirical History of New York, transforming Sinterklaas into ‘Santa Claus’ – a genial Dutchman stripped of his bishop’s robes. It was a symbolic act: the young republic fashioning a festive figure who looked forward, not back.
Poetry soon fixed the image. The anonymous 1821 poem Old Santeclaus with Much Delight introduced a sleigh and reindeer. Two years later, A Visit from St Nicholas (better known as The Night Before Christmas) defined the modern myth: the rotund, cheerful figure, the chimney descent and the eight named reindeer. By the mid-19th century, ‘Kris Kringle’, drawn from the German Christkindl, circulated alongside Santa – evidence of how immigrant traditions were continually blending.
Illustration then gave him geography. In the 1860s, the German-American cartoonist Thomas Nast depicted Santa as a plump, kindly figure clad in fur, later placing his home at the North Pole. Haddon Sundblom’s Coca-Cola advertisements in the 1930s fixed the colour scheme but didn’t invent it; Santa had already been appearing in red on magazine covers for decades. Mrs Claus and the elves entered the scene soon after, giving the story a domestic and industrial dimension suited to a modern age of production and consumption.
More than two billion people now celebrate Christmas in some form, many in societies where Christianity is a minority faith. Finland situates Santa in Lapland, complete with a working post office; Canada gives him an official address and postcode; Russia’s Ded Moroz brings gifts at New Year. Japan’s Christmas is secular, bright and commercial. Brunei and Somalia have banned public celebrations. Each version reflects how cultures adapt global traditions to local contexts.
Santa’s journey is, in many ways, a study in soft power. His story travelled along the same paths as trade, empire and media – carried not by conquest
but by appeal. The figure that began as a bishop in Turkey became an emblem of generosity in northern Europe, a civic icon in the USA, and finally a global symbol of goodwill. In an age of shifting influence, it’s a reminder that power often spreads most effectively not through force, but through stories people choose to share.
