FAQs concerning Santa

Note: All this information was taken from various web sites at random. In some cases the answers agree and sometimes they don't. I would take anything here with a grain of salt. Happy Holiday, which ever one you celebrate in midwinter, whether you believe in Santa Claus or not.

Who is Santa Claus?

Santa Claus (also known as Saint Nicholas, Saint Nick, Father Christmas, Kris Kringle or simply Santa) is a character in various cultures who gives presents to children on a particular day in December (usually Christmas Day but not in all countries).

Father Christmas is a well loved figure in , and is now interchangeable with Santa Claus, though the two had quite different origins. The term Santa is as widely used and understood by English children as Father Christmas.

Santa is based on a historical figure, Saint Nicholas, a bishop who once lived in a country that was located in present-day Turkey. His claim to fame was that he gave presents to the poor.

What is the origin of this legendary figure?

The modern Santa Claus is a composite character made up from the merging of two different figures.

The first is Saint Nicholas, a bishop of Myra, a province that is now in Turkey. Nicholas was famous for his generous gifts to the poor, in particular presenting three impoverished daughters of a pious Christian with dowries so that they would not have to become prostitutes. In Holland, Belgium, Austria and Germany, he is portrayed as a bearded bishop in canonical robes.

An early folk tale, originating in the Germanic states, tells of a holy man (sometimes Saint Nicholas), and a demon (sometimes or a troll). The story states that the land was terrorized by a monster who at night would slither down the chimneys and slaughter children (disemboweling them or stuffing them up the flue, or keeping them in a sack to eat later). The holy man tricked the demon with blessed or magical shackles (in some versions the same shackles that imprisoned Christ prior to the crucifixion, in other versions the shackles were those used to hold Saint Peter or Paul). The demon was trapped and forced to obey the saint who ordered him to go to each house and make amends, by delivering gifts to the children. Depending on the version, the saint either made the demon fulfill this task every year, or the demon was so disgusted by the act of good will that it chose to be sent back to hell. Yet other versions have the demon reform under the saint's orders, and go on to recruit other elves and imps into helping him, thus becoming Santa Claus.

So, depending on which legend you believe, Santa is either a saint or a demon, perhaps a combination.

Why is his sled pulled by eight reindeer?

Some elements of this part of the tradition of Santa Claus can be traced back to the Germanic god Wodan. Santa's appearance is similar to some portrayals of this god, who brought gifts in the winter season and rode a flying horse through the sky. (The horse had eight legs, corresponding to Santa's eight reindeer.) Saint Nick's white horse was probably transformed into eight sleigh-pulling reindeer by the famous poem/story by Clement Moore, 'Twas the Night Before Christmas." Moore gave the eight reindeer their names. Although legend has it that Saint Nicholas climbed on rooftops to drop money down the chimney, Moore decided the reindeer could fly to the rooftop. Maybe this was because the Right Jolly Old Elf had short legs and was unlikely to scale walls.

Why is he called Santa Claus?

When the Dutch still owned New Amsterdam, the city that later became New York, they brought the Saint Nicholas legend with them to North America. The name Santa Claus is derived from Sinterklaas, their name for the mythical character based on the saint. In Europe, the date of celebration is December 6, the supposed birthday of Saint Nicholas, called by the Dutch, Sinterklaasavond ("Sinterklaas Eve") by the giving of presents.

In Washington Irving's History of New York, Sinterklaas was Americanized to "Santa Claus" but lost his bishop's apparel. He was pictured as a thick bellied Dutch sailor with a pipe in a green winter coat. Irving's book was a lampoon of the Dutch culture of New York, and much of this portrait is his joking invention.

Why does Santa wear a red suit?

Santa Claus has appeared in various colored costumes as he gradually became amalgamated with the figure of Father Christmas. Red became popular after he appeared wearing a red suit on a Christmas card. His horse was converted to reindeer and a sleigh, the black Petes (which were in fact slaves) were converted to elves, and the date was moved forward a couple of weeks to coincide with Christmas.

The persona of Santa as most of us probably think of him today, as a larger than life grandfatherly figure in a fur-trimmed red suit, was largely the creation of artist, Haddon Sundblom. He was commissioned in 1931 by the Coca-Cola Company to produce ads that would picture St. Nick promoting their product. This was not a new idea. Santa had been used as an advertising tool since stores had first proclaimed themselves as "Santa's Headquarters," as early as 1841. On the day before Christmas that year, J.W. Parkinson of Philadelphia had a real "Criscringle" descending a chimney above the door of his shop to the amazement of all that passed by, especially the children.

Why does Santa give gifts to children?

Gifts were exchanged in the Roman ceremonies of Saturnalia, the festivities of solstice, the origin of most of our Christmas celebrations. We know the exchanging of gifts best from the three magi mentioned in the Bible. Christmas really became widely popular during the last century and is now really holiday celebrating commercialism.

The figure of Father Christmas (Santa Claus or Sinterklaas) is based on Saint Nicholas (270 - 310), the bishop of Myra. As mentioned previously, Saint Nicholas, clad in red and white bishop's robes and riding on a donkey, bestowed gifts on children. Saint Nicholas became the patron saint of children. During the Middle Ages, many churches were built in his honor throughout Europe. The anniversary of his death, 6 December, became the day to give gifts, especially to children.

Why is Santa Claus's workshop located at the North Pole?

Children naturally want to know where Santa Claus actually came from. Where did he live when he wasn't delivering presents? Those questions gave rise to the legend that Santa Claus lived at the North Pole, where his Christmas-gift workshop was also located.

In 1925, since grazing reindeer would not be possible at the North Pole, newspapers revealed that Santa Claus in fact lived in Finnish Lapland. "Uncle Markus", Markus Rautio, who compared the popular "Children's hour" on Finnish public radio, revealed the great secret for the first time in 1927: Santa Claus lives on Lapland's Korvatunturi - "Ear Fell"

The fell, which is situated directly on Finland's eastern frontier, somewhat resembles a hare's ears - which are in fact Santa Claus's ears, with which he listens to hear if the world's children are being nice. Santa has the assistance of a busy group of elves, who have quite their own history in Scandinavian legend.

Over the centuries, customs from different parts of the Northern Hemisphere thus came together and created the whole world's Santa Claus - the ageless, timeless, deathless white-bearded man who gives out gifts on Christmas and always returns to Korvatunturi in Finnish Lapland.

How did elves become part of the Santa Claus legend?

Mythologist Helene Adeline Guerber presents a very convincing case tracing Santa to the Norse god Thor in Myths of Northern Lands:

Thor was the god of the peasants and the common people. He was represented as an elderly man, jovial and friendly, of heavy build, with a long white beard. His element was the fire, his color red. The rumble and roar of thunder were said to be caused by the rolling of his chariot, for he alone among the gods never rode on horseback but drove in a chariot drawn by two white goats (called Cracker and Gnasher). He was fighting the giants of ice and snow, and thus became the Yule-god. He was said to live in the "Northland" where he had his palace among icebergs. By our pagan forefathers he was considered as the cheerful and friendly god, never harming the humans but rather helping and protecting them. The fireplace in every home was especially sacred to him, and he was said to come down through the chimney into his element, the fire.(Guerber, H.A. Myths of Northern Lands. New York: American Book Company, 1895, p. 61)

Even today in Sweden, Thor represents Santa Claus. The book, The Story of the Christmas Symbols, records:

Swedish children wait eagerly for Jultomten, a gnome whose sleigh is drawn by the Julbocker, the goats of the thunder god Thor. With his red suit and cap, and a bulging sack on his back, he looks much like the American Santa Claus. (Barth, Edna. Holly, Reindeer, and Colored Lights,The Story of the Christmas Symbols. New York: Clarion Books, 1971, p. 49)

Thor was probably history’s most celebrated and worshipped pagan god. His widespread influence is particularly obvious in the fifth day of the week, which is named after him – Thursday (a.k.a. Thor’s Day).

It is ironic that Thor’s symbol was a hammer. A hammer is also the symbolic tool of the carpenter – Santa Claus. It is also worth mentioning that Thor’s helpers were elves and like Santa’s elves, Thor’s elves were skilled craftsman. It was the elves who created Thor’s magic hammer.

Does Santa really have a wife? When did they marry?

In the 1930s Alice Leedy Mason wrote a poem entitled Jolly Old Santa Claus that was told to her four grandchildren. It features a white bearded Saint Nicholas living at the North Pole with his wife Mrs. Claus. Santa Claus has an army of helpful at the North Pole to help him make presents, open letters, and bake cookies. A Christmas tree room is featured with brownies creating ornaments. The poem ends with Santa arriving home with the brownies at Christmas Eve and falling asleep with a cup of hot chocolate.

Another web site claims that her name is Jessica Mary Claus. No explanation was given as to how this was discovered.

No one seems to know when they got married. Perhaps they are living together without a formal marriage.

Does Santa have any biological or adopted children of his own?

Apparently not.

There are probably a lot more questions that you may have regarding Santa, but that's all the time I had to research this important topic. There are plenty of web sites that claim to give the straight skinny about him. Too bad that don't agree with each other.

Our Pagan Winter Holiday

My wife and I are pagans. Thus, our winter holiday celebrations differ a bit from your Christian ones. The festivities really start in November when we sacrifice a large bird and eat it garnished with bountiful products of the Nature goddess, such as cranberry sauce, several types of vegetables followed by such pagan favorites as pumpkin and apple pies.

Before dinner we give thanks to Zeus (sometimes known as Jupiter) for all the good things in our life.

Then on the following day (known as Dark Friday), we get up early in the morning and stand outside the doors of a mall or other commercial enterprise to rush in grab at bargain prices the items we need for the Saturnalia Holiday, such as brooms, Cheetah pets, and other occult items.

On the eve of the Saturnalia, we attend the Temple of Apollo, where we drink the blood and eat the meat of a sacrificial lamb (not really blood and lamb meat, but red wine and cookies blessed by the Apolloian priestess). We decorate our homes with lights, candles and ornaments and hang up such herbs as mistletoe (which is supposed to bring love).

The center piece is the Yule tree dedicated to the god Bacchus which we decorate with lights and other ornaments.

Before we send the children to bed, we tell them about the god Woden who rides his white horse with eight legs through the night delivering gifts to children. Woden is a jolly overweight god with a white beard, a red suit who lives in the far north with elfish helpers. Sometimes we take out our Book of Shadows and read the story of Mithra. The goddess was born in a cave and adored by shepherds who offered the first-fruits of the harvest to her. Animals and important travelers also came to the cave to worship Mithra.

After the children open their gifts from Woden on Saturnalia morning, we sacrifice another bird in honor of the Phoenix, the bird that rises out of its ashes, and feast on it. Afterwards we exchange gifts and toast each other and the gods. Sometimes we sing hymns to the gods or dance in a magic circle. Saturnalia is good time for friends and relations to get together.

Happy Holidays everyone, whether you celebrate Christmas, Saturnalia, Hanukah, Kwanza, or some other Winter Solstice holiday.

2001 The Movie

One of the best science-fiction movies of all time was Stanley Kubrick's 2001, A Space Odyssey. Many people nowadays wonder what the big deal was with this movie. They have only seen it on the small screen. With digital special effect in more modern movies, the special effects seem ho-hum. In 1968, in a theatrical release, it was spectacular. I was one of the lucky ones who saw it in Cinerama in a wide-screen theatre. It was nothing short of mind blowing.

The film deals with thematic elements of human evolution, technology, artificial intelligence, and extraterrestrial life, and is notable for its scientific realism, pioneering special effects, ambiguous imagery that is open-ended to a point approaching surrealism, sound in place of traditional narrative techniques, and minimal use of dialogue.

In my opinion such movies as Star Wars and Alien probably would not have been made were it not for the success of 2001. It was the first movie to show that a serious SF film with great special effects could draw a large audience. Perhaps one of the reasons for this was that the Apollo space program and other NASA space probes were gaining popularity. It was only a year later that Lance Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin stepped onto the surface of the moon. Four years later Pioneer 10 had reached the planet Jupiter.

For those of you who had never saw the movie, here is a synopsis (warning, it contains spoilers): The movie starts millions of years ago when a group of subhumans are competing with tapirs and other homids for food. One morning a tall, thin, rectangular black monolith stands among the rocks. The apemen are excited but touch the object and calm down. By touching the monolith, they have learned to use bones as weapons and tools.

In the next scene the action moves to the near future where travel to the moon is an every day affair. A similar monolith is found on the moon and sends a signal towards Jupiter.

Eighteen months later a manned spacecraft is sent to Jupiter to investigate. Two of the team are awake to run the ship with the aid of an almost human AI called HAL. The other three are in hibernation. Hal announces that there is a problem with the AE-35 unit and it will fail with 100% certainty within 72 hours. The astronauts go EVA to replace the unit. The two astronauts scan the removed AE-35 unit but can't find any defects. Hal suggests putting it back in service to let it fail. Mission Control believes Hal has made an error because their HAL9000 unit, a twin to the one aboard Discovery, finds no flaw in the AE-35. Hal denies any chance of computer error. The astronauts go to a pod to have a private chat and decide to disable Hal's higher functions without disturbing the automatic ship control functions. Hal can see the men through the pod's window and reads their lips. When Poole goes out in the EVA pod, the pod murders him. When Dave uses a pod to recover Frank's body, a computer malfunction alert goes off and the life signs of the three hibernating astronauts flat line. Hal refuses to open the pod bay doors for Dave, explaining that he knows Dave is planning to disconnect him because he was able to read Frank and Dave's lips when they discussed it. He says the mission is too important to allow humans to jeopardize it. Dave releases Frank's body and maneuvers the pod to the emergency airlock hatch. He uses the pod's arms to open the door, holds his breath and jumps over to the ship. Dave goes to the computer room and shuts down HAL.

A much larger black monolith floats in Jupiter orbit,. Bowman leaves the Discovery in another EVA pod and enters a wormhole. The pod ends up somewhere in time and space in a bedroom with luminous white walls and floor and furniture in the style of Louis XVI. Dave ages swiftly until he is a dying old man. A monolith appears and transforms him into a star child.

If all of this sounds sort of mundane, it is because there is no way to describe the marvelous cinematography, special effects, music and emotional impact of the movie.

The idea for the movie was taken from an Arthur Clarke short story, The Sentinel. Clarke also wrote the script.

A sequel to the movie was released in 1984 called 2010: The Year We Made Contact starring Roy Schneider. The plot is based on Arthur Clarke's novel 2010: Odyssey Two.

It is a rather good movie itself, but nowhere as spectacular as 2001.

The Fourth Dimension and Time

You've probably heard it said that the fourth dimension is time. This idea is especially popular with science fiction authors when writing time travel stories. But what does this mean? And what are the implications?

Forgetting about time for a while, in ordinary life we deal with three dimensions: left-right, forward-back and up-down. What this means is that every material object and every location in the universe can be described mathematically using only three numbers. When we measure a material object, its width, length and height are called its dimensions. If we want to describe the location of an airplane, we give its coordinates as latitude, longitude and altitude. Longitude is the distance from an imaginary line cutting through Greenwich England, latitude is the distance from the equator and altitude is its distance above the earth; in other words, the three dimensions of its location. For objects located on the surface of the earth, only two dimensions are required since altitude is not considered because from a human viewpoint, the earth is a relatively flat surface as long as we don't consider such features as mountains and tall buildings.

In mathematics, the number of dimensions is shown by a superscript. For example, a cube two inches at each dimension can be said a 2³ inch cube (a two cubic inch cube). A two-inch line is a one dimensional object and can be written as 2¹ inch line. A two-inch square drawn on a sheet of paper would be 2² inch square (two square inch square). This also shows that objects of one, two or three dimensions can be illustrated by simple drawings or models. But, what about an object with four or more dimension? They can be shown mathematically by using superscripts (sometimes called powers) of 4, 5, or any number. But how do you illustrate such an object? For example, in a fourth dimensional object, how do you show a dimension at right angles to the other three?

Before I attempt to give an answer to the questions in the last paragraph, let's consider the attributes of objects in the lower dimensions. Imagine an infinite flat surface. On this surface, there is a line of infinite length. Let's say that there are number of points that live on that line. They can move left or right on that line but have no concept of the other dimensions. A point can never pass another point. Another race living on the surface are the Flatlanders. They can move left-right and forward-back but have no concept of up-down. A Flatlander could take one of the points and move it through the mysterious second dimension and put it on the other side of a fellow point. However, to the Flatlander, the line is an impassable barrier.

Now, as a three dimensional being, I have magical properties to the Flatlander. If I put my five fingers on the sheet of paper, the Flatlander sees me as five small blobs. If I remove a flat object into the third dimension, I can reverse it. The Flatlander first sees the object disappear and then returned reversed, an impossibility from his standpoint. I have other powers that Flatlanders are in awe of. I can appear and disappear within a closed space. I can see inside objects, including the Flatlanders' bodies. I can pick up a Flatlander and carry him across the barrier line. From this you can see that a fourth dimensional being would have similar extraordinary powers in our three dimensional world.

To get back to the question of illustrating a fourth dimensional object, we can show a three-dimensional object in two dimensions by opening it up. For example, a cube has six surfaces. If we unfold these surfaces into the form of a cross, we show the cube in two dimensions. The equivalent fourth dimensional object is called a hypercube and consists of eight cubes connected in four dimensions. If we unfold this into a three dimensional object, we would see eight cubes, four stacked on top of each other and the other four attached to one of the cubes in the stack, one on each side.

Now it is debatable whether time is actually a fourth dimension. But, for sake of argument, let's assume that it is. The implications of this are threefold. One is that all time, past, present, and future exist together in some way and that what we consider time passing is really only our traveling along a fourth dimension from past to present to future. It also seems to imply the possibility of travel in the reverse direction from the present to the past or speeding up our travel forward into the future. Thirdly, from the foregoing you can only come to conclusion that the future is predetermined, since it already exists and cannot be changed.

If you could view the fourth dimension (if it is time), you would see yourself extending to the point where you were born in one direction and up to the point of your death in the future. The same is true of everything around you. If not too distant in the fourth dimension, you could view any object from the point of its origin to its dissolution and all the changes that occurred to it.

Now a person who could travel into time would have some of the powers of a fourth dimensional being. He could appear in a locked room simply by going back in time when the room was not locked. He could disappear and appear somewhere else. He could predict the future.

In a previous paragraph, I stated that if time is the fourth dimension, our future is predetermined. This would also hold for the past. Thus, a time traveler who went to the past would not have a choice. He would by necessity have to have arrived from the future at the exact time of his arrival. This implies no free will, that even our thoughts are predetermined. To get around this problem and other paradoxes involved with time travel, one must conjecture other dimensions in which one can travel at right angles from not only to the usual three but from the fourth time dimension. This introduces the concept of parallel time.

The concept of parallel time is that starting from the beginning of the universe, each moment introduces infinite possibilities and each possibility exists somewhere (possibly in a fifth or higher dimension). So, if I go back in time and prevent my mother from meeting my father, two universes exist, one where I did not prevent my parents from meeting and one where I did. When I return to what I consider my own present, I actually return to a different universe from the one where I started from, one in which I was never born.

I hope this essay throws a little light on a confusing subject.