Confession time: I’m a Santa denier…
But, crucially, I am a Father Christmas believer!
Part of being a dissident is to continually re-evaluate what you thought you knew. It makes rewatching films an interesting experience, often times in films you thought were apolitically harmless you pick up on the more subversive tone and elements introduced by the screenwriters and directors. This can easily spiral out of control of course and leave you bereft of finding enjoyment, the sensible sane middle ground is to acknowledge it and move on.
Keep the above concept in mind as we dissect and explore the history and future of Christmas’s most popular figure.
Christmas has a long storied history - its roots of course go back to the dawn of sentient time. The Northern peoples were quick to realize the natural rhythms of live, they lived as a part of them that we cannot comprehend. The shortest day of the year and the welcoming of the sun’s lengthening time in the sky was a natural event to be celebrated. From this root every other winter celebration stems, it is as close to a primordial truth for the Northern Europeans as anything we have. Roman Saturnalia, continued solstice festivals, Yuletide of the Germanic and Vikings, and of course the development of Christmas as a part of Christian mythos.
Christmas is not the most important day in the calendar for the Christian. That would be Easter. Christmas in fact has often been frowned upon by the most pious Christians and it is out of this puritanism that Father Christmas in fact developed and arose. In medieval England Christmas was originally this celebration of life. Feasting, merriment, drinking, gambling. All things the puritanical movement despised, so much so that when they won the civil war they decreed an end to Christmas in 1647 (and other important celebrations).
“The said feasts of the nativity of Christ, Easter and Whitsuntide (Whitsunday) and all other festival days, be no longer observed.”
A subsequent law later decreed
“No observance shall be had of the five-and-twentieth day of December, commonly called Christmas Day”
This was radical stuff of course and caused a great deal of revulsion from the common folk. Rebellion was in the air and clearly the authorities went to some lengths to try and stymie this celebration as we can see from this 1659 notice banning Christmas celebrations in Boston:
In the course of this rebellion began to appear the idea of Old Father Christmas - possibly the earliest depiction of him is this illustration from a pamphlet calling for the return to the good old days:
Here an old man in robes with a flowing beard is challenged by an armed Puritan as he explains that “I bring good cheere” and the peasant also addresses him: “Old Christmas welcome; Do not fear”.
This old man was to go on to become Father Christmas, a symbol of merriment and cheer. Father Christmas is a uniquely English figure that arose in this period and was distinct from the much later to arrive Santa Claus.
Santa Claus is borne of the melting pot of American cultural creation, by no means a negative fact. After all in the early 1800s there was plenty of mingling of different folk with unique Christmas traditions. The Dutch notably took the story of Saint Nicholas, a Greek Bishop, and turned him into SinterKlaas. Saint Nicholas gave gifts to children and so this practice also spread, if we look above at the order from 1659 the giving of gifts is also explicitly forbidden so this practice was possibly also starting to take off in the Anglo world as well. America as a home to these merging Northern European cultures helped birthed the modern conception of Santa Claus.
Fittingly enough it was really a poem “A Visit from St Nicholas” that helped solidify the image of Santa Claus (under the auspices of Saint Nicholas) and give us the notions of the reindeer and a sleigh. The notion of him living in the (Hyperborean) North and his helpers of the elves and affinity with animals as well as magic really speak to this broader shared mythological universe common to all. Where Old Father Christmas was an embodiment of cheer and festivity - Santa Claus was an altogether slightly more mythical figure evolving out of religious sensibilities firmly wrapped in a very pagan kind of cloak.
Now of course Santa Claus is the dominant figure. To some extent he has merged with Father Christmas but I still see them as distinct, or perhaps more like two sides to a single coin. Father Christmas to me is about the sentiment of this time of year, of the celebration and the joy to be had with friends and family. He is for everyone not just children. Santa Claus, with his roots in the gift giving Bishop, caters towards children. Children are wont to go through a period of believing in Santa and then not believing in him, there is a sort of tenuous energy about him as a figure with his mythos combined with the complexity and sprawling nature of the myth. Old Father Christmas however is always present, he is the merry man in all of us there to usher in good joy and cheer in these dark winter days.
Personally I see Father Christmas as reaching back in a way that is healthier than the cheapening of what Santa Claus and some of his iconography has become. Santa Claus today makes me smile and grimace at times, gift giving is a crucial tradition and part of our culture but the consumerist excesses of the modern age often leave a bitter taste in the mouth. Ultimately both these figures really sing to our souls from the simple merriment of Old Father Christmas standing up to the Puritans to the equally pagan iconography of Santa magically being pulled by animals in his chariot.
Whether you prefer Old Father Christmas or Santa Claus I wish all my readers a very Merry Christmas season and Yuletide!