a visit from st nicholas illustrations

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An Early Christmas Gift: The First Illustrated Edition of A Visit from St. Nicholas

Not so long ago I got a phone call from AAS member David Doret (elected 2009), telling me that he had a Christmas book of potential interest. It was what seemed to be the first fully illustrated book-length edition of Clement Clarke Moore’s classic Christmas poem A Visit from St. Nicholas , better known as “The Night before Christmas.” Although Moore’s poem was first published in an 1823 issue of the Troy Sentinel newspaper and had appeared in children’s poetry anthologies, it was not until 1848 that the poem commanded center stage as the subject of its own picture book replete with wood engravings by Theodore C. Boyd. It was published in New York by Henry M. Onderdonk, who issued various publications for the Protestant Episcopal Church and was likely well acquainted with Moore, who was a professor of Divinity at the Episcopal General Theological Seminary in New York. It is a humble square book of sixteen pages, cheaply bound in a paper wrapper emblazoned with the title “Santa Claus.”

I listened to David with great interest. I had been on the prowl for this little book during my entire thirty-year tenure at AAS, and my collecting predecessor, former AAS director Marcus McCorison, had been eagerly searching for it for some decades before that. It was always in the back of my mind as I perused catalogs from book dealers and auction houses, but it was eerily absent. The truth of the matter is that only a handful of copies of the 1848 edition of Visit survive in institutional collections. Even in the 2006 Sotheby’s catalog devoted to Jock Elliott’s Christmas Collection—a collection compiled over half a century by the late chairman emeritus of the advertising firm Ogilvy & Mather—the 1848 Onderdonk edition of Visit is nowhere to be found. A copy of the 1823 Troy Sentinel issue containing the famous poem, however, was listed with a starting bid of between ten and twenty thousand dollars; I can only guess what a copy of this little book with its Santa pictures would have fetched, had it been available.

Self-proclaimed as “a present for good little boys and girls,” it features wood engravings by Theodore C. Boyd celebrating Santa as a scrappy elf shouldering a gift-laden peddler’s pack and smoking a stubby pipe.   In Boyd’s hands, Santa operates nimbly through the densely crowded townhouses of Antebellum New York (below); conveyed in its spare black line, this image offers an austere contrast to Thomas Nast’s full-color illustrations of Santa driving through an expansive American countryside, published two decades later by McLoughlin Brothers.

Thank you, David Doret, for donating one of the best Christmas gifts to AAS in a very long time. It is as though I have been handed the Holy Grail! 

Now if I can only find that long-rumored seventeenth-century copy of the New-England Primer . The chase goes on!

Check out the full book in the gallery below!

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Laura Wasowicz

Curator of Children's Literature, American Antiquarian Society View all posts by Laura Wasowicz

6 thoughts on “An Early Christmas Gift: The First Illustrated Edition of A Visit from St. Nicholas ”

This is about as lovely and informative a posting I’ve encountered in a long while. Congratulations on your new acquisition / gift to the AAS, and THANK YOU for organizing and portraying this first illustrated edition of A VISIT FROM ST. NICHOLAS in such a lovely, well organized way.

Dear Mr. Bishop,

I am really honored to receive such a favorable post. My goal was to give this very significant piece justice while choosing every word carefully, and letting the book speak for itself.

What a wonderful find Laura! A very timely acquisition! This is a perfect example of what makes AAS such a great institution. This blog is such a treat and the digital images are lovely though of course nothing compares to actually working with the objects in the collection. Wishing you continued success and a very Merry Christmas.!

P.S. I also am looking for a specific and very elusive 18th Century NEP for American History’s collection!

Very cool, Laura!

Congratulations to all!

Wonderful acquisition! Thank you for sending out this post to the world, and thank you David Doret!

Boyd – Such a wonderful edition and a favorite, along with the F.O.C. Darley edition and that of E. Manning. Recently I have been made away of a new collection with over 400 editions in the hands of a private collector and will be visiting to see what treasures it holds. Collecting the poem is such an enjoyable pastime. Thank you for the article – and images – delightful.

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A visit from St. Nicholas / illustrated by Thos Nast.

Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library > A visit from St. Nicholas / illustrated by Thos Nast.

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A Visit from St. Nicholas

Author Clement Clarke Moore American Illustrator Florence Wyman Ivins American

Not on view

Decorative paper cover with title label affixed to front. On first flyleaf leaf: "This little book has been printed to convey to their friends the Holiday Greetings of William Edwin Rudge and Bruce Rodgers. / Mount Vernon, New York, 1920". 9 pp. Illustrated headpiece and tailpiece showing a man looking out an open window at Santa's sleigh landing on a snow covered roof, and Santa with a sack by a chimney piece.

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Title: A Visit from St. Nicholas

Author: Clement Clarke Moore (American, New York 1779–1863 Newport, Rhode Island)

Illustrator: Florence Wyman Ivins (American, 1881–1948)

Published in: Mount Vernon

Medium: Illustrations: color lithographs

Dimensions: 8 9/16 × 5 5/8 × 1/8 in. (21.8 × 14.3 × 0.3 cm)

Classification: Books

Credit Line: The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1962

Accession Number: 62.650.184(1)

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A Visit From Saint Nicholas

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A Visit From Saint Nicholas

Illustrated from drawings, by f.o.c. darley ..

NEW YORK: JAMES G. GREGORY, PUBLISHER.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1862 by JAMES G. GREGORY, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Southern District of New York.

N. ORR, Engraver.

C.A. ALVORD, Printer.

A VISIT FROM ST. NICHOLAS.

Discovering the truth about Santa Claus

The poem that invented the modern version of Santa Claus is actually the center of a major a literary mystery

By Melissa Chim and The Conversation

If you picture Santa Claus as plump and jolly and pulled by reindeer, you may have this poem to thank

The poem " A Visit from St. Nicholas ," better known by its opening line "'Twas the Night before Christmas," has a special place among Christmas traditions, right alongside hot chocolate, caroling and bright lights. It has also inspired the modern image of Santa Claus as a jolly old man sporting red and a round belly.

But this poem has been steeped in controversy, and debate still looms over who the true author is. Traditionally, Clement C. Moore – a 19th-century scholar at the General Theological Seminary in New York, where I work as a reference librarian – has been credited with writing the poem in 1822 for his children. Every December, library staff shares our multiple copies of the poem in an exhibit to celebrate the holiday season.

No matter who wrote it, the poem is a fascinating object that has shaped Christmases past, present – and maybe yet to come .

A changing Santa Claus

Santa Claus had undergone many makeovers in the Western imagination by the time readers were introduced to "'Twas the Night before Christmas."

His feast day, Dec. 6, became a popular celebration in medieval Europe. By the modern era, images of St. Nick portrayed him as a tall, thin, stern man in a bishop’s hat who brought children both gifts and punishments. In German legend, he was accompanied by Krampus , a half-goat, half-demon creature that meted out a range of punishments to bad children, from mild to violent.

In Victorian Britain, Christmas became a festive holiday, with much feasting and drinking in addition to a religious celebration. In the early 19th century, Santa was sometimes depicted as a reveler from the lower classes – someone in need of charity, rather than a gift-giver himself.

As Christmas began to evolve into a family holiday, the image of Santa changed as well . Now, his jolliness came from the Christmas spirit, not feasting, and his rosy cheeks were the result of joy, not alcohol.

"'Twas the Night before Christmas" was instrumental in crafting the modern American version of Santa Claus. The poem describes St. Nicholas as "dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot," with twinkling eyes, rosy cheeks, a snow white beard and a round belly. Throughout the poem, Santa is depicted as a jolly elf bringing joy with his reindeer-led sleigh to both children and adults.

Thomas Nast , a Civil War-era cartoonist with the magazine Harper’s Weekly, created the enduring image of Santa Claus in a series of 33 drawings published between 1863 and 1886. The first of these drawings is inspired by the poem’s depiction of Santa carrying a sack full of presents with his sled pulled by reindeer.

Our library holds a copy of Nast’s book " Christmas Drawings for the Human Race ," containing his illustrations for "'Twas the Night Before Christmas." The introduction to our copy is written by Nast’s grandson, Thomas Nast St. Hill, who inscribed and donated it to the library in 1971. In some images, Nast used Santa to send a political message – such as one illustration that depicts him with toys related to battle, showing his support for Union soldiers.

Authorship debate

Two hundred years after the poem debuted, one fundamental question remains: Who is its true author?

The poem first appeared anonymously in a New York newspaper, the Troy Sentinel, on Dec, 23, 1823 , and was reprinted many times. The New York Book of Poetry cited Moore, the 19th-century biblical scholar, as the author in 1837, and in 1844 he included it in his book of poems. Several years after the poem’s publication in the Sentinel, editor Orville Holley wrote that the author was "by birth and residence [belonging] to the city of New York, and that he is a gentleman of more merit as a scholar and writer than many of more noisy pretensions." That’s an apt description of Moore, according to Niels Sonne, a librarian at General Theological Seminary in the 20th century who published an article about the authorship controversy. Moore was officially cited as the author in The New York Book of Poetry in 1837.

But the descendants of Henry Livingston Jr., a poet and farmer from an influential New York family, argue that he wrote the famous poem as early as 1808 and was never properly credited. Relatives of Livingston have claimed that his manuscript was brought to Wisconsin, where it was destroyed in a fire in 1847. His defenders point to similarities with other poetry and witty satires he wrote, and argue that his fun personality was much more in keeping with "A Visit from St. Nicholas" than Moore’s. His grandson, William Sturgus Thomas, spent years collecting evidence in his grandfather’s favor, and his papers are housed at the New York Historical Society.

The story continues

Every December, the Seminary library displays all the original copies of the poem we own in addition to more modern retellings and illustrations. Our copy of Moore’s 1844 "Poems" has one significant detail: it’s signed by Moore to the Reverend Samuel Seabury, who was a professor at General Theological Seminary and also the grandson of the first Episcopal American bishop, Samuel Seabury. The inscription says: "To the Reverend Dr. Seabury, with the respect of his friend the author, July 1844."

The library also owns Moore’s rare follow-up work, titled " The Night after Christmas ," which was published after his death in 1863. In this version, the children are visited by their doctor after having too many treats delivered by Santa – and the physician shares some similarities with Santa himself:

"His eyes how they twinkled! Had the doctor got merry? His cheeks looked like Port and his breath smelt of Sherry…

But a wink of his eye when he physicked our Fred Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread…"

• "Who Wrote 'Twas the Night Before Christmas? A Literary Debate" by Jennifer Ciotta, Literary Traveler , December 1,2017
• "Who really wrote 'The Night Before Xmas'" by Frederick M. Winship, UPI , December 5, 2002
• The Trial Before Christmas 2013, 2014 , created by Jack Casey and Duncan Crary.       The first mock trial took place in Troy, New York, where the poem was originally printed in 1823. The trial featured lawyers, plaintiffs, the judge, witnesses back from the dead, and a room full of spectators. After the 90 minute trial the jury returned a deadlocked verdict 3 to 3. So no decision in 2013. The trial engaged folks in local Troy history and created holiday spirit.      The 2014 trial, held in the Rensselaer County Courthouse in Troy, watched by folks in the courtroom, strollers outside on a big screen, and around the world on YouTube. The two-hour trial yielded a unanimous verdict this time: Henry Livingston.       The Trial Before Christmas website includes information about the trial, videos to watch, and more. 
• Hallmark made a 2-hour Christmas movie, 'Twas the Night Before Christmas , loosely based on the trial.
• 'Night Before Christmas' Trial: 'Twas the Verdict Surprising?, by Jenny Tsay, Esq, FindLaw , Last updated March 21, 2019,
• Exhibit: Revisiting "A Visit from St. Nicholas", New York State Library , December 2015
• "The Night After Christmas" by Clement Clarke Moore, FreshReads

For further reading

Who Wrote "The Night Before Christmas"? Analyzing the Clement Clarke Moore vs. Henry Livingston Question by MacDonald P. Jackson, McFarland & Company, 2016

The author, emeritus professor of English, University of Auckland, and fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand, carried out a thorough study of both Moore and Livingston's work. He endeavored to discover the characteristics that distinguish each author's work and then to determine where this poem fits. He did not have a pre-determined opinion.

His exhaustive study concludes, "These elements of composition are not readily subject to imitation. Their rates of use are largely beyond a writer's conscious control. They distinguish Moore's verse from Livingston's and they classify 'The Night Before Christmas' with the latter. The reasonable conclusion is that 'The Night Before Christmas' was composed by Henry Livingston."

Author Unknown: On the Trail of Anonymous by Don Foster, Henry Holt & Company, 2000

The author, professor of English at Vassar College, has helped with dozens of investigations of anonymous and pseudonymous writings in criminal and civil cases. This question is addressed in the final chapter of the book. 

Foster's account is more narrative about both possible authors, written in an entertaining style, with less textual analysis than the above book. However, he does come to the same conclusion, as he says, "Moore's supporters always point to the form of this anapestic 'Pig and Rooster' fable as evidence that the Professor really was capable of writing a children's poem like 'A visit from St. Nicholas.' Major Livingston's heirs point to the content as evidence that he couldn't have. Major Livingston's heirs are right." Foster's work has served to encourage others to do even deeper textual analysis.

The Fight for "The Night": Resolving the Authorship Dispute over "The Night Before Christmas" by Tom A. Jerman, self-published, 2023

The author, a retired lawyer with some journalistic experience, seems to have set out to defend Moore's authorship, refuting Don Foster in particular. He carried out exhaustive research on the supposed authors and used textual analysis not available to the earlier investigators. His conclusion is that the Livingston claims are without merit.

By Melissa Chim, Adjunct Professor and Reference Librarian, General Theological Seminary. The Conversation , December 16, 2021. Used under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 4.0 International license .

General Theological Seminary is a member of the Association of Theological Schools. The ATS is a funding partner of The Conversation U.S.

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The Night before Christmas - or A Visit from St. Nicholas (with the original illustrations by Jessie Willcox Smith) Kindle Edition

• Reading age 4 years and up
• Print length 37 pages
• Language English
• Publisher e-artnow
• Publication date November 20, 2013
• Page Flip Enabled
• Word Wise Enabled
• Enhanced typesetting Enabled
• Sticky notes On Kindle Scribe
• ISBN-13 978-1791939755
• See all details

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From school library journal, about the author, product details.

• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00HYD34PO
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ e-artnow (November 20, 2013)
• Publication date ‏ : ‎ November 20, 2013
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• File size ‏ : ‎ 2374 KB
• Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
• Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
• Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 37 pages
• Page numbers source ISBN ‏ : ‎ B093RP1J2F
• #745 in Children's Christian Holiday Fiction
• #1,153 in Children's Christmas Books (Kindle Store)
• #1,651 in Children's Christian Books (Kindle Store)

About the author

Clement clarke moore.

Clement Clarke Moore was a professor of religion and the author of several scholarly works. What he is most remembered for, however, is his poem "An Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas," later called "The Night Before Christmas," and written as a Christmas gift for his six children.

Clement Clarke Moore (July 15, 1779 – July 10, 1863) was an American writer and Professor of Oriental and Greek Literature, as well as Divinity and Biblical Learning, at the General Theological Seminary of the Protestant Episcopal Church, in New York City. The seminary was developed on land donated by Moore and it continues on this site at Ninth Avenue between 20th and 21st streets, in an area known as Chelsea Square. Moore's connection with the seminary continued for more than 25 years.

Moore gained considerable wealth by subdividing and developing other parts of his large inherited estate in what became known as the residential neighborhood of Chelsea. Before this, the urbanized part of the city ended at Houston Street on Manhattan island. For 10 years, Moore also served as a board member of the New York Institution for the Blind.

He is credited and is most widely known as the author of the Christmas poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas", first published anonymously in 1823. It later became widely known as "'Twas the Night Before Christmas" and has been published in numerous illustrated versions in various languages. Scholars debate the identity of the author, calling on textual and handwriting analysis as well as other historical sources.

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The Night Before Christmas (Rackham)

Illustrated by Arthur Rackham

THE·NIGHT BEFORE·CHRISTMAS

CLEMENT·C·MOORE·L·L·D·

ILLUSTRATED·BY ARTHUR·RACKHAN

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

T was the night before Christmas, when all through the house Not a creature was stirring, not even a Mouse; The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, In hopes that St Nicholas soon would be there;

T he children were nestled all snug in their beds, While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads; And Mamma in her kerchief, and I in my cap, Had just settled our brains for a long winter’s nap,

W hen out on the lawn there arose such a clatter, I sprang trom the bed to see what was the matter. Away to the window I flew like a flash. Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash

T he moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow Gave the lustre of midday to objects below, When, what to my wondering eyes should appear, But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer,

W ith a little old driver, so lively and quick, I knew in a moment it must be St Nick. More rapid than eagles his coursers they came, And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name: N ow. Dasher ! now, Dancer ! now. Prancer and Vixen ! On, Comet ! on, Cupid ! on, Donner and Blitzen ! To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall! Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!”

The prancing and pawing of each little hoof. As I drew in my head, and was turning around, Down the chimney St Nicholas came with a bound. H e was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot, And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot; A bundle of Toys he had flung on his back, And he looked like a pedlar just opening his pack.

His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry! His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow, And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow; T he stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth, And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath; He had a broad face and a little round belly, That shook when he laughed, like a bowlful of jelly.

And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself; A wink of his eye and a twist of his head Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread. H e spoke not a word, but went straight to his work, And filled all the stockings; then turned with a jerk, And laying his finger aside of his nose, And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose;

H e sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle, And away they all flew like the down of a thistle. But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight,

Dr. Clement C. Moore , the author of these verses, was born in the city of New York in 1779. The son of Bishop Benjamin Moore, he became a well-known classical scholar, and in 1821 was appointed Professor of Hebrew and Greek Literature in the Protestant Episcopal Seminary in New York. He died in 1863. Among his contributions to literature and learning is a monumental “Hebrew and English Lexicon,” a work of great labor and the product of many years’ toil. Yet, strangely enough, Dr. Moore’s fame today rests almost solely on this poem, which he wrote one Christmas-time for his children. Published first under the title “A Visit from St Nicholas,” it has been translated into nearly all European languages, and has even been issued in Braille.

This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published in 1915, before the cutoff of January 1, 1929.

The longest-living author of this work died in 1939, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 84 years or less . This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works .

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Reader's Digest

Is Santa Real? Learn the Origin Story of St. Nick

Posted: April 27, 2024 | Last updated: April 27, 2024

The real story behind Santa

Every child who celebrates Christmas can tell you about Santa Claus: He wears red and white, flies a sleigh pulled by reindeer, delivers toys and, these days, even has apps dedicated to tracking him. But is Santa real? Kids would say he is—and they'd be right. Well, not Santa himself. But his namesake, Saint Nicholas, certainly existed.

St. Nicholas lived nearly two thousand years ago, and the story of how he morphed into Santa is the stuff of legend. His tale travels from Europe to America and back again, leaving cookie crumbs along the way. "He was a very, very popular saint—the Taylor Swift of saints, even though we know very little about him," says Robert Thompson, a Syracuse University professor of pop culture. "The great stories of St. Nicholas had the seeds of what would be really useful when the 19th century needed a symbol for a holiday that would become the greatest retail festival of all time."

St. Nicholas turned into one of the most well-known and internationally beloved Christmas symbols of all time—indeed, what is Christmas today without the man with the bag? Jolly Old St. Nick lends an unforgettable sense of magic to Christmas Eve, but let's explore how he got there, with the help of our Santa experts.

Get  Reader’s Digest ’s  Read Up newsletter for more holiday history, humor, cleaning, travel, tech and fun facts all week long.

The connection between St. Nicholas and Santa Claus

The real St. Nicholas was a fourth-century bishop from the city of Myra, which is now in Turkey. "We know precious little about St. Nicholas," Thompson says. "St. Nicholas reminds me of Shakespeare: We have very little data that's hard and fast, and we don't even know if he actually existed." The bones in his grave are considered holy relics, though, and a 2017 Oxford University examination of them found that they are of the right time period and therefore could be proof the man did exist.

There are plenty of stories—legends, really—about him. He's known for his anonymous gift-giving, as in the tale of a man who has no money for his three daughters' dowries, which would leave them to a fate of prostitution. "Nicholas hears about this, and depending on the version of the story you read, their stockings are hanging out, and he fills them with coins, and they're able to have a dowry," Thompson says. Then there's an even more bizarre yarn. "Three little boys are boiled in a pot, and he brings them back to life," he says.

In spite of, or maybe because of, these strange tales, St. Nicholas became very popular over the centuries. "He was a really adaptable saint because he was the saint of all kinds of things, from sailors to children," Thompson says. "There were St. Nicholas churches all over the place," including the Netherlands, where the celebration of St. Nick's feast day on Dec. 6—conveniently close to Christmas—gave rise to a Dutch version of the saint known as Sinterklaas.

Which brings us to New Amsterdam, aka New York City, originally settled by the Dutch. "If what we know today as Santa Claus lives in the North Pole, he was born in New York," Thompson says. "These various stories and ideas made their way across the Atlantic to the United States, to New York. And then in that usual American super-sized, consumer-oriented way, [we] transformed them."

Using the Dutch culture of the area, early 19th-century author Washington Irving—who's more associated with Halloween, as the inventor of Sleepy Hollow and the Headless Horseman—gave the first hint of our modern Santa Claus in 1809. "Washington Irving in his Knickerbocker's History of New York includes some very early important elements of the modern Santa Claus that we know, including a [flying wagon] that was drawn by horses," Thompson says. Irving's jolly St. Nick would also drop gifts down chimneys. "Irving gets things started and primes New York as this place where the modern American Santa is bubbling up."

The origin of Santa Claus

Anyone asking "Is Santa real?" deserves a better understanding of how St. Nicholas transformed into the Americanized symbol we're familiar with today. Santa in America really came to life with the 1823 Christmas poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas," now commonly called "'Twas the Night Before Christmas," credited to the scholar and Irving's fellow New Yorker Clement Clarke Moore (although the true author is up for debate).

"That poem reads much like today's Santa," Thompson says. It incorporates all the modern trappings of Santa: the rosy nose, the white beard, the fur outfit, the bundle of gifts for kids , even his reindeer's names (the reindeer themselves first appeared two years earlier in the poem "Old Santeclaus with Much Delight"). "A Visit" builds on Irving's vision, even borrowing the pipe and the near-direct quote, "laying his finger aside of his nose."

Visually, artists began incorporating this jolly, round-bellied Santa into illustrations. Civil War cartoonist Thomas Nast drew one of the first recognizable Santas in 1862 in Harper's Weekly and continued for more than 20 years. "Thomas Nast, over the course of many years, is developing Santa and plumping up his physique," Thompson says.

He says Santa was a perfect figure for the Industrial Revolution of the 19th century, which brought about an increase in commerce—and the commercialization of Christmas. "The whole birth of modern consumer culture that very much starts in the 19th century helped motivate the invention of Santa Claus, the American version," Thompson says. "If Santa Claus comes from a saint, it makes it a little bit more sacred; this is not simply retail or consumer-driven. This is not simply a god of consumption."

Santa's rise to fame

The 20th century solidified the American Santa so much that asking "Is Santa real?" is now a rite of passage for American children. Some of the most famous images of the modern Santa came with the Coca-Cola advertisements drawn by artist Haddon Sundblom, starting in 1931. "They were everywhere," Thompson says. "Those were beautiful pictures. I remember actually taking a little kitchen knife and pulling out one of those pictures, and I hung it up as a Christmas decoration in my bedroom."

Another big way to sell Santa? Department store Santas and, later, mall Santas. "That was a sense of taking this idea that up until that point had only been in literature and illustrations, and putting Santa Claus into actual physical space," he says. Thus began the Christmas tradition of kids sitting on Santa's lap and asking for what they want for Christmas. "That also put Santa Claus in the place he really was the emperor of: the retail establishment."

Rudolph, the ninth reindeer, also has his roots in consumer culture, starting off as a promo book for the retailer Montgomery Ward in 1939 before becoming a hit Christmas song in 1949 and an animated special in 1964. "The special became a huge hit and continues to be a huge hit," Thompson says. "If you're under 60, you just grew up assuming Rudolph was the front reindeer, and it comes as a great surprise to realize Rudolph was a Montgomery Ward advertising creation."

Add in Christmas movies like Miracle on 34th Street and a host of new Christmas songs focused on the big guy, and you've turned out a modern holiday figure from a third-century saint. "Santa Claus was retrofitted to St. Nicholas from the start," he says.

How Santa Claus got his name

If the names St. Nicholas, Sinterklaas and Santa Claus all sound alike, that's not a coincidence. "You could say St. Nicholas fast, and it becomes Santa Claus," Thompson says. Sinterklaas itself is a shortened form of Sint-Niklaas, which is Dutch for St. Nicholas. "The language gives a signpost to how these various lines of cultural evolution happened," Thompson says.

Although the term Santa Claus is an American invention, no one is exactly sure when the name was created. The first time it appears in print is in a 1773 newspaper, Rivington's New-York Gazetteer : "Last Monday, the anniversary of St. Nicholas, otherwise called St. a Claus, was celebrated at Protestant Hall, at Mr. Waldron's, where a great number of the Sons of that ancient Saint celebrated the day with great joy and festivity."

How Santa is celebrated throughout the world

OK, so you know how St. Nicholas became Santa Claus in America, but is Santa real anywhere else around the world? Although many countries have their own Santa-like figures who give gifts to little boys and girls, they've increasingly been mingled with the American Santa over the years. "Santa Claus via St. Nicholas gets to American shores, and through Nast and Irving and 'A Visit from Saint Nicholas,' and then all the movies and TV shows and Coke advertisements, gets transformed and Americanized and then gets shipped around the entire world as another great cultural imperialist act of the United States," Thompson says. From his roots in the Netherlands, the American Santa Claus has come full circle and now influences Europe and the rest of the globe.

Santa in Japan

Nowhere has Santa as an American import taken hold quite like in Japan. "When you go to Japan, you'll see an American Santa Claus imported mostly through decades and decades of presentation in mass media, film and television," Thompson says. Santa and Christmas in Japan, though, are completely secular, as the majority of the country is not Christian. The Buddhist figure of Hotei, who brings presents for the new year, is sometimes called the Japanese Santa, as the two share similarities in character and appearance.

Santa in England

England's Father Christmas started not as a saint but as a festive allegorical figure clad in green who epitomized the "making merry" part of Christmas. In Charles Dickens's classic Christmas book A Christmas Carol , which helped create the modern holiday, there is no Father Christmas or Santa—but the Ghost of Christmas Present is very similar. "If you look at the pictures that originally accompanied that story, he looks a lot like Santa Claus: bearded, jolly, but he's merry old Christmas. He's not Santa Claus. That name is never mentioned at all." Eventually, though, Father Christmas and the American Santa became one and the same.

Santa in France

The French Père Noël, which translates to Father Christmas, is a mashup of that figure and St. Nicholas. Instead of hanging stockings, French children put out their shoes or slippers on Christmas Eve in the hopes of having them filled with little gifts. Père Noël doesn't have reindeer—instead, he rides a donkey.

The French also celebrate St. Nick's feast day on Dec. 6, particularly in the Alsace region. "People bake a sweet brioche bread or large biscuits in the form of a little man, or in French, mannala , to represent St. Nicholas," says Amelia Brown, a professor of Greek history and language at the University of Queensland in Australia who has studied St. Nicholas extensively. "These 'little men' and other lollies are given to children during a parade, which ends with eating these sweet gifts and drinking hot chocolate in the cold winter air."

Santa in the Netherlands

Sinterklaas is still celebrated in the Netherlands on St. Nicholas's feast day, Dec. 6. He shares some similarities with Santa, such as his white beard, but he's dressed as a bishop in traditional Catholic red robes (this is also why Santa Claus wears red, one of the traditional Christmas colors ). Sinterklaas rides a white horse, a holdover from the Norse god Odin, who flew on a horse during the winter solstice celebration of Yule. Since St. Nicholas's feast day was near the solstice, it was also combined with elements of solstice holidays, Brown says.

Santa in Germany

Although Germany incorporates some aspects of St. Nicholas and Santa Claus, Germans also have their own twist. The holiday figure of Christkindl is a 16th-century Protestant attempt to move the gift-giving from the Catholic feast of St. Nick to Christmas. "With the Christ child, the gift giver is baby Jesus himself," Thompson says.

Confusingly, Christkindl transformed over time into a female angel with golden hair and a crown. The term Christkindl is also where we get the English name Kris Kringle, another moniker for Santa.

German tradition also gives us the alter ego to Santa: Krampus, a malevolent figure who comes after naughty children. "There's the evil Krampus, which is getting very much attention and getting rediscovered, turning [the holiday] into horror," Thompson says. This original bad Santa likely came from pagan traditions around the winter solstice. Today, people dressed as the sinister spirit still parade on Krampusnacht, or Krampus Night, Dec. 5.

Santa in Russia

Although similar in appearance, Russia's Ded Moroz, or "Grandfather Frost," is not exactly connected to St. Nicholas but is tied to pagan folklore. Thinner than Santa and sometimes dressed in blue, he brings presents on New Year's. "There have always been these mystical, giving spirits of the solstice and midwinter that have manifested in many kinds of ways," Thompson says. "After the Russian Revolution [in the 1920s], they tried to transfer [St. Nick] to the idea of these winter spirits and father winter" in order to curtail religious celebrations.

Santa in Greece

For some countries, St. Nicholas remains the top dog of holiday figures. "In modern Greece and other Orthodox countries and communities, Dec. 6 is celebrated as St. Nicholas's feast day, with services in church in honor of his death in the year 343," Brown says. "There are also many other traditions, especially gift -giving to and by people with this 'name day,' so Nicholases or Nicoles or Nicks. You greet them in Greece with Chronia Polla , 'May you live many years!'" Fittingly, cities with St. Nicholas as their patron saint, such as New York and Amsterdam, also hold a festival for the celebration of the day, she says.

The future of Santa

Today, we're thinking about Santa in new and different ways, with the idea that he can manifest as people of different colors—or maybe even female. "We're beginning to rethink and re-examine Santa Claus's origins and not to take him simply back to New York, the American Santa, but to tie into St. Nicholas," Thompson says. "And that brings us to the notion of a much more diverse idea of what Santa Claus was that didn't come just from a very specific strain of American literature and then American Madison Avenue."

Looking at his history, St. Nick and Santa have been so many things over the centuries, it doesn't make sense to pigeonhole them. "Now we've got a sense of what the poems and the movies have been telling us from the beginning: that Santa Claus is an idea, a spirit, a representation of something bigger and more wonderful, and that can embody itself in any number of different ways," Thompson says.

About the experts

• Robert Thompson is a trustee professor of television, radio and film at the Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. He is also the director of the school's Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture and the editor of an ongoing series of books about television published by Syracuse University Press. Santa Claus is one of his favorite subjects.
• Amelia Brown , PhD, is a professor of Greek history and language in the Classics and Ancient History discipline of the School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry at the University of Queensland in Australia, as well as the director of the R.D. Milns Antiquities Museum at the university. She has studied St. Nicholas extensively and is currently in Greece doing research.
• University of Oxford : "Could ancient bones suggest Santa was real?"
• The Coca-Cola Company : "Haddon Sundblom and the Coca-Cola Santas"
• New York Public Library : "Santa's New York Roots"
• English Heritage : "The History of Father Christmas"

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