Christmas and Heritage

Special Christmas ornaments depicting cities or countries are easily found, some nice and some too cluttered.  I find a gondola ornament representing Venice, Italy, nice, but a cityscape with several buildings forming a collage of mismatched pieces of a city too busy.  I show some of these in other articles that are listed here.

Santa Claus is the name known in the United States.  The characteristics of Santa Claus are a white-haired, bearded man of ample girth, with a jolly disposition who delivers gifts.  While the physical appearance of Santa Claus looks nothing like the image I found of the real Saint Nicholas, perhaps the generous nature of Santa Clause, and his joyful nature, give rise to the association with the saint.

Many in the United States descend from people who fled England, Scotland, and Ireland to avoid famine or religious persecution.  While those ancestors may not have liked the government of their day, they would have had no problem with Father Christmas.  Father Christmas has a very similar to Santa Claus, but also can be found wearing green. 

While Pere Noel might translate Father Christmas, the figure is more slender than Santa Claus.  Pere Noel is also the Santa figure in France.  He is also the Santa figure in other areas with French influence.

Many in the United States have family roots from France.  France once owned Louisiana when it was much larger than today and went from the Gulf of Mexico to Canada.

In Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Belgium, Sinter Klaas, wearing red and riding a horse gives out gifts.  He is clad in red, and has a wavy white beard.  He wears a bishop’s miter, and represents Saint Nicholas.  In the Netherlands the figure is also the same. 

It is also possible to find white and some blue in the part of his clothing that shows from beneath the red coat.

Santa Claus in Germany is called Weihnachtmann.  He is decked out in red trimmed with white.  Weihnachtmann has a sack of gifts, and he can be depicted as carrying a Christmas tree.  He has a full, white beard, and is not too dissimilar from Santa Claus. 

Immigrants from Germany to the United States included some of my ancestors, who arrived in the mid-nineteenth century.  Actually, my ancestors are from Bavaria, Germany, but at the time they immigrated the country from which they came was Prussia.

In Italy the Santa Claus figure is Babbo Natale, and he resembles Santa Claus.  He can have decorative trim on his red outfit.  He does not magically fly, even with reindeer, but some years back the character Dominic the Donkey was invented as a means of helping Babbo Natale up steep mountains so he can reach the children at higher elevations.

Spain does not have a distinctive Santa figure, but instead uses the three members of the Magi as gift givers.

There are others, but these cover many larger countries, especially those that helped populate the United States.

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