Santa Claus In Northern American Culture
Santa Claus (also known as Saint Nicholas, Saint Nick, Father Christmas, Kris Kringle, Santy or simply Santa) is a folklore figure in various cultures who distributes gifts to children, normally on Christmas Eve. Each name is a variation of Saint Nicholas, but refers to Santa Claus. In today's North American, European and worldwide celebration of Christmas, people young and old simply refer to the hero of the season as Santa, or Santa Claus.
Conventionally, Santa Claus is portrayed as a kindly, round-bellied, merry, bespectacled white man in a red coat trimmed with white fur, with a long white beard. On Christmas Eve, he rides in his sleigh pulled by flying reindeer from house to house to give presents to children. To enter the house, Santa Claus comes down the chimney and exits through the fireplace. During the rest of the year he lives together with his wife Mrs. Claus and his elves manufacturing toys. Some modern depictions of Santa (often in advertising and popular entertainment) will show the elves and Santa's workshop as more of a processing and distribution facility, ordering and receiving the toys from various toy manufacturers from across the world. According to American public opinion, Santa Claus lives at the North Pole, though North Pole is in the middle of the Arctic Ocean and there is no land. According to legend the Santa Claus at Macy's in New York City is often said to be the real Santa Claus.
Since most activities associated with Santa Claus are extraordinary, such as delivering presents to all of the believing children in one night, how he squeezes down chimneys, how he enters homes without chimneys, why he never dies, and how he makes reindeer fly, magic is usually used to explain his actions.
Read more about Santa Claus In Northern American Culture: Origins, Songs
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“I stopped believing in Santa Claus when I was six. Mother took me to see him in a department store and he asked for my autograph.”
—Shirley Temple Black (b. 1928)
“On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe.”
—Johnny Mercer (1909–1976)
“No sane local official who has hung up an empty stocking over the municipal fireplace, is going to shoot Santa Claus just before a hard Christmas.”
—Alfred E. Smith (1873–1944)
“The northern sky rose high and black
Over the proud unfruitful sea,
East and west the ships came back
Happily or unhappily....”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)
“Do not be discouraged, if in a thousand instances you find your kindness rejected and wronged, your good evil-spoken of, and the hand you extend for the relief of others, cast insultingly away; the benevolence which cannot outlive these trials of its purity and strength, is not like the self-sacrifice of him, who went about doing good.”
—C., U.S. women’s magazine contributor. American Ladies Magazine, pp. 331-4 (July 1828)
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—Sir William Schwenck Gilbert (1836–1911)