Clement Clarke Moore was an American poet. He was born in 1779 at New York and died in 1863. Educated at Columbia College, he became a scholar of Hebrew and professor of Oriental and Greek literature. He is best known for inventing the modern Father Christmas or Santa Claus, as the jolly fat man with a white beard who visits houses at Christmas, which he describes in his poem 'Twas the Night Before Christmas' also known as 'A Visit from St Nicholas' which he wrote in reaction to the anti-social behaviour witnessed in New York at Christmas time when roving gangs of poor young men called at the houses of the rich and demanded Christmascomfort, Clement Clarke Moore and his peers wishing - and succeeding - to switch the focus of the Christmas celebrations onto the giving of presents to children rather than the poor. Research Clement Clarke Moore
In French mythology, Abonde is the equivalent of Father Christmas or Santa Claus, the good fairy who comes at night to deliver toys to children while they sleep, especially on New Year's Day. Research Abonde
In Christian mythology, Santa Claus (corrupted from the Dutch Sante Klaas meaning Saint Nicholas) is the personification of the spirit of Christmas. The name Santa Claus originated in the USA during the late 18th century, in Europe the name Saint Nicholas - the patron saint of Children in the Roman Catholic church - was used, and around the start of the 20th century the term Father Christmas was adopted in Britain, presumably deriving from the term 'Father' being a highly respected teacher or priest of the Christian church. The tradition of hanging up a Christmasstocking on Christmas eve for Santa Claus or Father Christmas to fill with presents, is an old Dutch tradition which soon caught on in Britain. Research Santa Claus
St Nicholas is the patron saint of children. St Nicholas was the Roman pontiff Nicholas I also known as Nicholas The Great, who was pontiff from 858 to 867 and who excommunicated Photius of Constantinople, causing the separation of the Eastern and Western Christian Churches. Adopted as the personification of the spirit of Christmas, his Dutch name was corrupted in the USA during the 18th century into the modern 'Santa Claus'.
St Nicholas, as Father Christmas or Santa Claus is first mentioned in the poem 'Twas the Night Before Christmas' by Clement Clarke Moore, published in 1822. In this poem the description of St Nicholas as we know him today is first made, and not as many believe by a 1920's Coca-Cola advertisement! In the poem St Nicholas is described as: 'a little old driver, so lively and quick ... dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot...a bundle of toys he had flung on his back, and he looked like a peddler just opening his pack. His eyes - how they twinkled! his dimples how merry! His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry! His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow, and the beard of his chin was as white as the snow; the stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth, and the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath; he had a broad face and a little round belly, that shook, when he laughed like a bowlful of jelly. He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf.' The poem also describes how he drives a sleigh pulled by eight tiny reindeer, and how he visits houses via the chimney and fills stocking left out by the children full of toys. Research St Nicholas
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