In celebration of the festive period I decided to dedicate this post to a special man; a man that many children love at this time of year. Santa, St Nick, St Nicholas, Father Christmas, Kris Kringle, whatever you wish to call him. Starting with 10 interesting facts about him:
- The Guinness World Record for the largest gathering of Santa Clauses is held by Thrissur, Kerala, India, where on 27th December 2014, 18115 Santas came.
- Children have long sent Santa letter, which typically contain wishlists. Many postal services allow kids to send letters to Santa. These letters might be answered by postal workers and/or volunteers.
- Every country has different traditions, I mean every family tends to be slightly different. For example, America and Canada leave Santa milk and a plate of cookies on Christmas Eve. However, Britain and Australia tend to leave sherry or beer with mince pies.
- His bones leak miracle juice.
- Department store Santa is a 120 year old tradition
- The Santa suit originates from Coca-Cola. In 1931, they issued a massive ad campaign that feature Santa in coke's red and white colours. Since then, it's been hard to imagine him anything else
- Santa was a bachelor until the late 1800s.
- Thomas Nast, famous newspaper artist found inspiration for his extremely popular painting of today's Santa from Clement C. Moore's world famous poem, The Night Before Christmas ("A Visit from St. Nicholas"). Nast was the first person to paint the first definitive portrait of our present day Santa in 1870.
- His fame spread rapidly during Middle Ages and thousands of churches that are dedicated to him.
- In China, he's called Shengdan Laoren.
Santa plays a big part in growing up for children. It is the start of imagination alongside fairy-godmothers and the tooth fairy! I was 11 when I stopped believing he existed; just before going to high school. It is embarrassing in a way, but demonstrates how lucky I was as a child. I managed to believe despite friends admitting they'd seen their parents at the end of their beds etc.
How old were you when you discovered Santa wasn't real? I hope I didn't ruin it for you with this post!
