The song's lyrics have also been attributed to Benjamin Hanby, who wrote a similar song in the 1860s, Up on the Housetop. "What he's done is pretty much tame these Grimm's Fairy Tales-type characters from the late medieval days," Bowler said.Though he undoubtedly means well, Santa has certainly stirred up, and continues to create, more than his fair share of controversy.In Russia, Santa Claus fell afoul of Josef Stalin. "Santa remains a politicized figure around the world.

American troops spread their version of the jolly man around the world in the years immediately following World War II, and he was generally welcomed, Bowler said, as a symbol of American generosity in rebuilding war-ravaged lands.Nowadays, however, people in many nations have Santa on their own naughty list, either because he represents the secular side of Christmas at the expense of the religious. "So the Christ child was often given a scary helper to do the lugging of presents and the threatening of kids that doesn't seem appropriate coming from the baby Jesus. (See "Every December 6, the faithful celebrate St. Nicholas Day in cities all over the world, with the largest ones taking place in Europe. "The other story is not so well known now but was enormously well known in the Middle Ages," Bowler said. All rights reserved The strict saint took on some aspects of earlier European deities, like the Roman Saturn or the Norse Odin, who appeared as white-bearded men and had magical powers like flight. Some people have also attributed the lyrics to John Piersol McCaskey-a song editor and publisher, among other things, at the ti… "I have a wonderful picture of him that looks exactly like George Washington riding a broomstick," Bowler said.It wasn't until the late 19th century, he added, that the image of Santa became standardized as a full-size adult, dressed in red with white fur trim, venturing out from the North Pole in a reindeer-driven sleigh and keeping an eye on children's behavior.The jolly, chubby, grandfatherly face of this Santa was largely created by Once firmly established, North America's Santa then underwent a kind of reverse migration to Europe, replacing the scary gift bringers and adopting local names like Père Noël (France) or Father Christmas (Great Britain). (Related: In the Netherlands, kids and families simply refused to give up St. Nicholas as a gift bringer. But familiar as the poem is, it still leaves much to the imagination, and the 19th century saw Santa appear in different-colored clothing, in sizes from miniature to massive, and in a variety of different guises. Before the Russian Revolution, Grandfather Frost ("Then in the 1930s, when Stalin needed to build support, he allowed the reemergence of Grandfather Frost not as a Christmas gift bringer but as a New Year's gift bringer," Bowler added. They brought But in early America Christmas wasn't much like the modern holiday. Attempts to displace Christmas in Russia were ultimately unsuccessful, as were Soviet attempts to spread a secular version of Grandfather Frost, complete with blue coat to avoid Santa confusion, across Europe.

"Jolly Old Saint Nicholas" is a Christmas song that originated with a poem by Emily Huntington Miller (1833-1913), published as "Lilly's Secret" in The Little Corporal Magazine in December of 1865. He is the Nicholas rose to prominence among the saints because he was the patron of so many groups. "It went viral," Bowler said. 2020 National Geographic Partners, LLC. However, the lyrics now in common use closely resemble Miller's 1865 poem. Nicholas's fame lived long after his death (on December 6 in the mid-fourth century, around 343) because he was associated with many miracles, and reverence for him continues to this day independent of his Christmas connection. These figures expected good behavior or forced children to suffer consequences like whippings or kidnappings. Who is this ancestor of Santa, and how did he change over time? Digital artists added details that were based on best guesses, including the olive-toned skin most common among Greek Mediterraneans like Nicholas, brown eyes, and the gray hair of a 60-year-old man.

Ol' Saint Nicholas hip-hooray Have a merry Christmas day!

"'It was celebrated as a kind of outdoor, alcohol-fueled, rowdy community blowout," Bowler said. "That figure brought gifts to good girls and boys, but he also sported a birch rod, the poem noted, that "directs a Parent's hand to use when virtue's path his sons refuse."

"That's what it had become in England as well. The size and shape of the facial muscles that once covered Nicholas's skull had to be inferred, and the shape of that skull itself was recreated from two-dimensional data. There's a merry little man we know And to everybody's home he'll go When the weather's at a cold degree Can't you guess who it can be? "Everywhere they went after World War II, the Soviets tried to replace the native gift bringers in places like Poland or Bulgaria," Bowler explained. "Some of these scary Germanic figures again were based on Nicholas, no longer as a saint but as a threatening sidekick like Ru-klaus (Rough Nicholas), Aschenklas (Ashy Nicholas), and Pelznickel (Furry Nicholas). Santa Claus wasn't always "chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf." Nicholas entered an inn whose keeper had just murdered three boys and pickled their dismembered bodies in basement barrels. Dissimilar as they seem to the jolly man in red, these colorful characters would later figure in the development of Santa himself. "Here we finally have the appearance of a Santa Claus," Bowler said. One of the most compelling views of the real St. Nick, who lived in the third and fourth centuries, was created not by ancient artists but by using modern forensic facial reconstruction.Scholarly debate over where the remains of the Greek bishop rest continues to this day, but traditionally, it was believed that the bones of St. Nicholas were stolen by Italian sailors during the 11th century and taken to the crypt of the Caroline Wilkinson, a facial anthropologist at the University of Manchester (England), used these data and modern software simulations to create a modern reconstruction of the long-dead man.