Fascinating Christmas Facts

December 24, 2009

Interview with Jeff Guinn, author of the book The Autobiography of Santa Claus

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Mike Carruthers:
Do you know why we celebrate Christmas on December 25th?

Jeff Guinn:
Before Rome embraced Christianity officially around 350 A.D., the previous religion they followed worshipped a God named Mithra.
 

Jeff Guinn, coauthor, with Santa Claus, of The Autobiography of Santa Claus …

And they celebrated the birth of Mithra on December the 25th. When they switched to Christianity they kept the date for convenience.

Santa Claus, says Jeff, is very, very old.

In the year 280 A.D. in a country called Lycia, which is now part of Turkey, a child named Nicholas was born. And Nicholas first became a priest and then a bishop and by 300, 310 A.D., there were already stories of him bringing gifts into the houses of children and leaving gifts in their stockings.

And the idea of flying reindeer originated with Washington Irving.

Now we know him mostly for The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, but he also wrote a book called Diedrich Knickerbocker, and that was the first time that in a story Santa Claus flew above the trees in a magic wagon to deliver presents. Eight years later, a woman writing a children's book had a reindeer pulling that sleigh and Clement Moore took that story and he's the one that originated the eight tiny reindeer. Clement Moore wrote A Visit From Saint Nicholas, which we now know as 'Twas the Night Before Christmas.