Christmas trivia.

Santa Claus is of course a mangled version of St. Nicholas (almost certainly via the Dutch Sinter Klaas). St. Nicholas was a real person who lived towards the end of the 3rd, and beginning of the 4th centuries AD. He was a bishop of the early church, and by all accounts was a good man who devoted much of his life to collecting money from the rich and distributing it to the poor - particularly children - which is doubtless where the idea of Santa bringing presents to children originated. The reindeer didn't make an appearance until the early 1800s when somebody (there is a dispute as to exactly who) wrote a poem entitled "A Visit from St Nicholas". The title may not mean anything to you, but I bet you all know the opening lines - 'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse... And this is the first we hear of Santa riding on a sleigh being pulled by eight reindeer (Rudolph of course was a much later addition). And by the way, if the reindeer are pictured as having antlers, then they're female! Male reindeer have lost their antlers by Christmastime, Around the same time as the poem, the image of Santa that we have today - a fat, jolly, ruddy-faced man with a white beard and dressed in red - began to emerge, and was most famously taken up by the Coca-Cola company around 1930 to use in its advertisements.