The tradition of Santa Claus being said to enter dwellings through the chimney is shared by many European seasonal gift-givers. In pre-Christian Norse tradition, Odin would often enter through chimneys and fire holes on the solstice. In the tale of Saint Nicholas, the saint tossed coins through a window, and, in a later version of the tale, down a chimney when he finds the window locked. In Dutch artist Jan Steen 's painting, The Feast of Saint Nicholas , adults and toddlers are glancing up a chimney with amazement on their faces while other children play with their toys.
The hearth was held sacred in primitive belief as a source of beneficence, and popular belief had elves and fairies bringing gifts to the house through this portal. Santa's entrance into homes on Christmas Eve via the chimney was made part of American tradition through the poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas" where the author described him as an elf. In the United States and Canada, children traditionally leave a glass of milk and a plate of cookies intended for Santa to consume; in Britain and Australia, sherry or beer, and mince pies are left instead. In Denmark, Norway and Sweden, it is common for children to leave him rice porridge with sugar and cinnamon instead.
In Ireland it is popular to leave Guinness or milk, along with Christmas pudding or mince pies. In Hungary, St. They get sweets in a bag if they were good, and a golden colored birch switch if not. On Christmas Eve "Little Jesus" comes and gives gifts for everyone. New Zealand, British, Australian, Irish, Canadian, and American children also leave a carrot for Santa's reindeer, and are told that if they are not good all year round that they will receive a lump of coal in their stockings, although the actual practice of giving coal is now considered archaic.
Children following the Dutch custom for sinterklaas will "put out their shoe" leave hay and a carrot for his horse in a shoe before going to bed, sometimes weeks before the sinterklaas avond. The next morning they will find the hay and carrot replaced by a gift; often, this is a marzipan figurine. Naughty children were once told that they would be left a roe a bundle of sticks instead of sweets, but this practice has been discontinued.
Last minute rituals for children before going to bed include aligning stockings at the mantelpiece or other place where Santa cannot fail to see them, peeking up the chimney in homes with a fireplace , glancing out a window and scanning the heavens for Santa's sleigh, and in homes without a fireplace unlocking an exterior door so Santa can easily enter the house. After the children have fallen asleep , parents play the role of Santa Claus and leave their gifts under the Christmas tree.
Tags on gifts for children are sometimes signed by their parents "From Santa Claus" before the gifts are laid beneath the tree. Ho ho ho is the way that many languages write out how Santa Claus laughs. Merry Christmas! The laughter of Santa Claus has long been an important attribute by which the character is identified, but it also does not appear in many non- English -speaking countries. The traditional Christmas poem A Visit from St. Nicholas relates that Santa has:. Santa Claus's home is traditionally said to include a residence and a workshop where he is said to create—often with the aid of elves or other supernatural beings—the gifts he is said to deliver to good children at Christmas.
Some stories and legends include a village, inhabited by his helpers, surrounding his home and shop. There is also a city named North Pole in Alaska where a tourist attraction known as the "Santa Claus House" has been established. Each Nordic country claims Santa's residence to be within their territory. In Denmark, he is said to live in Greenland near Uummannaq. In Sweden, the town of Mora has a theme park named Tomteland.
The national postal terminal in Tomteboda in Stockholm receives children's letters for Santa.
Actors portraying Santa Claus appear in the weeks before Christmas in department stores or shopping malls, or at parties. The practice of this has been credited [ dubious — discuss ] to James Edgar , as he started doing this in in his Brockton, Massachusetts department store.
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His function is either to promote the store's image by distributing small gifts to children, or to provide a seasonal experience to children by listening to their wishlist while having them sit on his knee a practice now under review by some organisations in Britain, [67] and Switzerland [68]. Sometimes a photograph of the child and actor portraying Santa are taken. Having a Santa actor set up to take pictures with children is a ritual that dates back at least to The area set up for this purpose is festively decorated, usually with a large throne, and is called variously "Santa's Grotto", "Santa's Workshop" or a similar term.
In the United States, the most notable of these is the Santa at the flagship Macy's store in New York City—he arrives at the store by sleigh in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade on the last float, and his court takes over a large portion of one floor in the store. Essayist David Sedaris is known for the satirical SantaLand Diaries he kept while working as an elf in the Macy's display, which were turned into a famous radio segment and later published.
In Canada, malls operated by Oxford Properties established a process by which autistic children could "visit Santa Claus" at the mall without having to contend with crowds. In , the Southcentre Mall in Calgary was the first mall to offer this service. In the United Kingdom , discount store Poundland changes the voice of its self-service checkouts to that of Santa Claus throughout the Christmas retail period.
There are schools offering instruction on how to act as Santa Claus. It blossomed into a second career for him, and after appearing in parades and malls, [73] he appeared on the cover of the American monthly Boston Magazine as Santa. Meath was a board member of the international organization called Fraternal Order of Real Bearded Santas.
Due to this, some companies offered video calls for a fee using apps such as Zoom where children could talk to an actor dressed up as Santa Claus at the other end. Writing letters to Santa Claus has been a Christmas tradition for children for many years. These letters normally contain a wishlist of toys and assertions of good behavior. Some social scientists have found that boys and girls write different types of letters.
Girls generally write longer but more polite lists and express the nature of Christmas more in their letters than in letters written by boys. Girls also more often request gifts for other people. Many postal services allow children to send letters to Santa Claus. These letters may be answered by postal workers or outside volunteers. A letter to Santa is often a child's first experience of correspondence. Written and sent with the help of a parent or teacher, children learn about the structure of a letter, salutations, and the use of an address and postcode.
The USPS Santa letter answering effort started in out of the historic James Farley Post Office [80] in New York, and since has been called "Operation Santa" to ensure that letters to Santa are adopted by charitable organizations, major corporations, local businesses and individuals in order to make children's holiday dreams come true from coast to coast. Other Santa letter processing information, according to the UPU's study and survey of national postal operations, include: [78].
Canada Post has a special postal code for letters to Santa Claus, and since over 13, Canadian postal workers have volunteered to write responses. This postal code, in which zeroes are used for the letter "O", is consistent with the alternating letter-number format of all Canadian postal codes. Sometimes children's charities answer letters in poor communities, or from children's hospitals, and give them presents they would not otherwise receive.
From to , the program replied to approximately "one million letters or more a year, and in total answered more than In Britain it was traditional for some to burn the Christmas letters on the fire so that they would be magically transported by the wind to the North Pole. However this has been found to be less efficient than the use of the normal postal service, and this tradition is dying out in modern times, especially with few homes having open fires. In Mexico and other Latin American countries, besides using the mail, sometimes children wrap their letters to a small helium balloon, releasing them into the air so Santa magically receives them.
In , the Brazilian National Post Service, " Correios " formed partnerships with public schools and social institutions to encourage children to write letters and make use of postcodes and stamps. In , the Brazilian National Post Service, " Correios " answered almost two million children's letters, and spread some seasonal cheer by donating , Christmas gifts to some of Brazil's neediest citizens.
He receives over , letters every year from over different countries with Togo being the most recent country added to the list. The post office welcomes , visitors a year, with 70, visitors in December alone. Children can also receive a letter from Santa through a variety of private agencies and organizations, and on occasion public and private cooperative ventures. An example of a public and private cooperative venture is the opportunity for expatriate and local children and parents to receive postmarked mail and greeting cards from Santa during December in the Finnish Embassy in Beijing , People's Republic of China , [93] Santa Claus Village in Rovaniemi , Finland, and the People's Republic of China Postal System's Beijing International Post Office.
The "Santa Letter" market generally relies on the Internet as a medium for ordering such letters rather than retail stores. A number of websites created by various organizations claim to track Santa Claus each year. The Director of Operations, Colonel Harry Shoup, received the first call for Santa and responded by claiming to children that there were signs on the radar that Santa was indeed heading south from the North Pole. In the past, many local television stations in the United States and Canada likewise claimed they "tracked Santa Claus" in their own metropolitan areas through the stations' meteorologists.
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Many other websites became available year-round, devoted to Santa Claus and purport to keep tabs on his activities in his workshop. Many of these websites also include email addresses or web forms which claim to allow children to send email to Santa Claus. One particular website called emailSanta. In addition to providing holiday-themed entertainment, "Santa tracking" websites raise interest in space technology and exploration , [] serve to educate children in geography. Santa Claus has partial Christian roots in Saint Nicholas , particularly in the high church denominations that practice the veneration of him, in addition to other saints.
In light of this, the character has sometimes been the focus of controversy over the holiday and its meanings. Some Christians, particularly Calvinists and Puritans , disliked the idea of Santa Claus, as well as Christmas in general, believing that the lavish celebrations were not in accordance with their faith.
Condemnation of Christmas was prevalent among the 17th-century English Puritans and Dutch Calvinists who banned the holiday as either pagan or Roman Catholic. The American colonies established by these groups reflected this view. Tolerance for Christmas increased after the Restoration but the Puritan opposition to the holiday persisted in New England for almost two centuries. Mary Baker Eddy , the founder of the Christian Science movement, wrote: "the children should not be taught that Santa Claus has aught to do with this [Christmas] pastime.
A deceit or falsehood is never wise. Too much cannot be done towards guarding and guiding well the germinating and inclining thought of childhood. To mould aright the first impressions of innocence, aids in perpetuating purity and in unfolding the immortal model, man in His image and likeness. Under the Marxist—Leninist doctrine of state atheism in the Soviet Union after its foundation in , Christmas celebrations—along with other religious holidays—were prohibited as a result of the Soviet antireligious campaign.
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In December , the city management office of Langfang in Hebei province released a statement stating that people caught selling Christmas trees, wreaths, stockings or Santa Claus figures in the city would be punished. At that time, sleighs were how you got about Manhattan.
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Writing in Mothering , writer Carol Jean-Swanson makes similar points, noting that the original figure of St. Nicholas gave only to those who were needy and that today Santa Claus seems to be more about conspicuous consumption :. Our jolly old Saint Nicholas reflects our culture to a T, for he is fanciful, exuberant, bountiful, over-weight, and highly commercial.
He also mirrors some of our highest ideals: childhood purity and innocence, selfless giving, unfaltering love, justice, and mercy. What child has ever received a coal for Christmas? The problem is that, in the process, he has become burdened with some of society's greatest challenges: materialism, corporate greed, and domination by the media. Here, Santa carries more in his baggage than toys alone! In the Czech Republic, a group of advertising professionals started a website against Santa Claus, a relatively recent phenomenon in that country.
I'm against Santa in my country only. In the United Kingdom, Father Christmas was historically depicted wearing a green cloak. A law in the U. The law came to attention when the beer brand Bud Light attempted to use its mascot Spuds MacKenzie in a Santa Claus outfit during a December ad campaign; Bud Light was forced to stop using the imagery. Psychologists generally differentiate between telling fictional stories that feature Santa Claus and actively deceiving a child into believing that Santa Claus is real.