MAMEWorld Forums - The Loony Bin - Re: Is Santa white?

> OK what color is a Turk? Not modern day Turk, but a one from the middle ages, with a
> bit of African blood from when the moors sacked most of the Mediterranean.
>
> He looks a happy chappy though.

Ok, THAT guy… if you want to consider the archaeogenetic haplogroup of the Turks, they're still scientifically classified as caucasian.

So where'd he come from…

First millennium Christians, wanting to facilitate conversion of the Norse, needed a Christian parallel for Papa Noel so that the Norse could continue their most popular traditions, and so the gift giving figure of Papa Noel was encouraged to be though of as the third century's Saint Nicholas, who's day of celebration (then being December 19th, but now celebrated on the 5th or 6th) was very near to the winter solstice. Papa Noel's visage continued on thereafter, however, evolving into Saint Nicholas, still bearing gifts while riding a flying horse named Sleipnir from the North. The two patrons of the Yule season, however, as centuries passed, became more and more blended until the traditions of the two became one entity with many names, to include Papa Noel, Saint Nicolas, Sinterklaas, Santa Claus, and Father Christmas. During the early 16th century, Martin Luther (founder of the Protestant religion) encouraged Christians to think of the gift-bringer as the Christ child himself, or Christkindl (kʁɪstkɪnt). The pronunciation of this word for many English speaking people sounded like "Kris Kringle", and so yet another nickname for the Northern white-bearded gift-bringer of the Noel season came to be.

So what happened to the eight legged horse named Sleipnir and how did we get eight flying rain deer from that?

In 1823, Clement Clarke Moore published his famous poem "A Visit From Saint Nicholas" (more commonly known as "The Night Before Christmas"), wherein he replaced the eight-legged flying horse Slipindear introducing for the very first time the concept of eight individual flying reindeer. The ninth reindeer, Rudolf, wasn't introduced for another century when in 1939 Robert L. May published his story about the red-nosed reindeer to be distributed as a part of an advertising campaign for Montgomery Ward department stores.