Although stories may vary slightly, history tells us that Santa Claus, the jolly man in red, who comes down chimneys once a year delivering presents for good girls and boys was indeed a real person. Here is my version of the true story of Saint Nick.
Santa Claus, also known as Nicholas Claus, or St. Nicholas, was born in 2000 years ago, not too long after the days that Jesus Christ walked the earth, to wealthy parents in a tiny village in the country we today call Turkey. Since the day he was born, Nicholas was a very religious boy, following Christian principles, and giving self-lessly to others. When he was a young boy his parents past away, and Nicholas turned to the church for comfort, and soon started along the past of becoming a priest. Due to his great devotion to Christianity, Nicholas became the youngest bishop in the history of the church. When the romans began persecuting the christians for their religious beliefs, he was imprisoned with many other followers, until the roman emperor Constantine the Great established the Christian Church as the official religion of Rome.
Nicholas was very fond of childern, he was constantly caring for them and giving them gifts, soon causing the children of the region to start refering to him as “saint” Nicholas, which then developed into Santa Claus (Santa means “saint” and Claus is short for Nicholas). One day, Nicholas met a kind man in town who was so poor that he had to send his three daughters to the streetes to beg for food and money. When Nicholas heard of this, he immeadiately knew he had to help, so one night, under a full moon, Nicholas crept up to the poor man’s house, and placed three sacks of gold and food inside the man’s open window (one sack for each child). It is from this, that the lovely story of Santa Claus, the jolly old man who sneaks down the chimney on December 24th, was born.
