Where did the whole Santa Claus thing originate?
Santa Claus, Saint Nicholas, Saint Nick, Father Christmas, Kris Kringle, Santy, Jolly Old Elf, Santa Klaus or simply Santa, is a gift-giving figure in various cultures who distributes presents to children and adults, traditionally during the night of December 24, Christmas Eve, while everyone is sleeping. The popular American form Santa Claus originated as a mispronunciation of Dutch Sinterklaas, which is a contracted form of Sint Nicolaas (Saint Nicholas). How he became the way he is now? On Christmas Eve of 1822, another New Yorker, Clement Clarke Moore, wrote down and read to his children a series of verses; his poem was published a year later as “An Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas” (more commonly known today by its opening line, “‘Twas the night before Christmas . . .”). Moore gave St. Nick eight reindeer (and named them all), and he devised the now-familiar entrance by chimney. Moore’s Nicholas was still a small figure, however — the poem describes a “miniature sleigh” with a
