The legendary symbol of new year depicted as an joyful benevolent old man who always wears red contrasting his white hair, eyebrows and beard is believed to be ready to make the children's wish real during the evening of Christmas Eve.
Even though the popular western culture portrays him as an humoristic character having the latest gift manufacturing technology overrun by elves and reindeers waiting to fly outside, his origins are much older and vague than expected.
Nikolaos of Myra is thought to inspire the popular folk-legend of Santa Claus. He was a 4th century Greek Christian bishop of Myra (now Demre) in Lyrcia, a province of the ByzantineAnatolia, now in Turkey. Nicholas was famous for his generous gifts to the poor. He was very religious from an early age and devoted his life entirely to Christianity. In Europe (more precisely the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria and Germany) he is still portrayed as a bearded bishop in canonical robes.
The tradition of him dwelling through chimneys reach back to the tales of Saint Nicholas tossing coins down a chimney when he found the windows locked.
Images of Santa Claus drawn by Haddon Sunblom for The Coca Cola Company’s Christmas advertising in the 1930s further popularized him giving rise to urban legends that it was the company to invent Santa Clause as he was wearing red and white to promote the company colors.
The tradition of him dwelling through chimneys reach back to the tales of Saint Nicholas tossing coins down a chimney when he found the windows locked.
Images of Santa Claus drawn by Haddon Sunblom for The Coca Cola Company’s Christmas advertising in the 1930s further popularized him giving rise to urban legends that it was the company to invent Santa Clause as he was wearing red and white to promote the company colors.
The figure has been criticized by some authorities claiming that he is a symbol of commercialism as he has become burdened with some of society's greatest challenges: materialism, corporate greed, and domination by the media.
Another debate about his existence is that it is unethical to lie children that he is real and the children may lose their trust in their parents. However Dr. John Condry of Cornell University interviewed more than 500 children for a study of the issue and found that not a single child was angry at his or her parents for telling them Santa Claus was real. According to Dr. Condry, "The most common response to finding out the truth was that they felt older and more mature. They now knew something that the younger kids did not".
The picture on the top was illustrated by American cartoonist Thomas Nast in 1881 in Harper's Weekly. It was colored later.
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