If you search for "Christmas in Europe" on Google, you will find many sites that talk about how we celebrate on December 25 in various countries of Europe and the world. It will be fast enough to read a few pages and you will discover that, except for some small difference between locations, from Finland to Greece on Christmas is celebrated in the same way all over the world: Mass, gifts and lunch ultracalorico. It is therefore true that often it is said that Christmas, in an increasingly globalized world and less religious, is not the celebration of the birth of Christ but the triumph of consumerism, which has flattened all the local traditions, transforming them into an excuse to buy gifts and then spend? Or is there another explanation for the fact that millions of individuals throughout the West spend the day on December 25 following the same rituals? The answer lies in the origins of the festival. In fact, it probably will surprise those who today identify with nationalist values and xenophobia, Christmas traditions are an incredible example of integration of cultures and legends from times and places very different. I do not intend to write the story of Christmas. Rather we will take as an example of this mix of cultures, the figure of Santa Claus. The tall gentleman and fat, his face framed by a bushy white beard is not, as one might expect, the product of the interest of a corporation that seeks to build a party for thousands of years to increase its revenues, nor is it a legend imported in Catholic countries from Northern Europe. In reality, Santa Claus was born in the third century AD in Patara, in Anatolia. Here lived because St. Nicholas, Bishop of Myra, who became Santa Christmas thanks to Christian legend, a poem by U.S. and German illustrator of a pencil.
The legend tells of a very devout nobleman with three daughters of marriageable age who, because of the setbacks of fortune, could not provide a dowry to any of the girls, that risks remain spinsters. San Nicola decided to run to his aid and launched a night, through an open window of the dilapidated castle in which lived a man, a bag of gold coins: the dowry for his eldest daughter. The next night the miracle was repeated, and the second girl was satisfied. But the third night the window was closed: St. Nicholas did not lose courage, climbed nimbly on roof and threw the bag in the chimney. The next morning the family found gold coins in the stockings hung to dry near the fire.
The legend that Santa Claus outfits to the North Pole and everywhere to deliver his gifts to use a sleigh pulled by reindeer is due to the spread of the cult of St. Nicholas in many Nordic countries, and also by the fact that winter is backdrop to the Christmas holidays. Originally, he imagined that Santa Claus riding a sleigh with a single reindeer, but in 1823, Clement C. Moore wrote a poem entitled A Visit from St. Nicholas, which describes the holy aboard a sleigh pulled by eight reindeer, call each by name. The poem became so popular to be fixed forever this image of the collective imagination and inspire Thomas Nast, an American citizen who emigrated from Germany and illustrator known politician, who first drew Santa Claus as an old jovial and ruddy. But even the dress of Santa Claus can be traced back to Saint Nicholas: The bishop's miter and robe of the saint have become the red tunic lined with fur and the famous hat tip, while the white beard is the same Nicholas, which can be seen in the paintings of ancient mosaics. And, finally, the name Santa Claus is none other than the derivation from the Latin Nicolaus Santus.
In conclusion I think that those who now claim the purity of their roots and, therefore, refuses to integrate with other populations as opposed to the idea of \u200b\u200bliving behind the European Union, should look a bit 'better the origin of those same cultural roots of which must be so proud. And why not, you may do so precisely from some legend charming and funny as those which gave rise to the Christmas holidays one of the most international of the world.
Henry subsided
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