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
Famous quotes containing the words santa claus, santa, claus, northern, american and/or culture:
“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)
“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)
““That’s where I reckon Santa Claus comes in
To be our parents’ pseudonymity
In Christmas giving, so they can escape
The thanks and let him catch it as a scapegoat....””
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“For generations, a wide range of shooting in Northern Ireland has provided all sections of the population with a pastime which ... has occupied a great deal of leisure time. Unlike many other countries, the outstanding characteristic of the sport has been that it was not confined to any one class.”
—Northern Irish Tourist Board. quoted in New Statesman (London, Aug. 29, 1969)
“It is a thing which every sensible American should learn from every sensible Englishman, that glare and glitter, gimcracks and gewgaws, are not indispensable to domestic solacement.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“No culture on earth outside of mid-century suburban America has ever deployed one woman per child without simultaneously assigning her such major productive activities as weaving, farming, gathering, temple maintenance, and tent-building. The reason is that full-time, one-on-one child-raising is not good for women or children.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)