Goblins, Demons, & Witches: It‘s the strange history of Christmas!
Witches, goblins, demons, and saints. Even though this sounds like a troop more fit for Halloween, this odd collection of ancient folklore is at the very center of a holiday that has been celebrated in different forms as far back as history has been written: Christmas, aka Yuletide, aka Saturnalia. It turns out that the holiday we are all familiar with today is a strange conglomerate of many European winter traditions. The true history of Christmas is long, complicated, and rife with religious oppression. So conjure up an egg nog and get comfy by the fire, because this is about to get complicated.
Prologue:
Santa Claus, aka Saint Nicholas, aka Kris Kringle, aka Father Christmas, was first popularized in North America in 1823 when a poem by Clement Clarke Moore titled A Visit From Saint Nicholas (aka The Night Before Christmas) was published. A few decades later, an illustration by Thomas Nast depicted Saint Nicholas as a jolly fat man smoking a pipe. Together, these two accidentally created the modern image of the Christmas gift-bringer, Santa Claus. However, even this version was not popularized in media until the 1920s, thanks in part to Coca-Cola and their Christmas campaigns which often featured the man in red. This is where the North American version of Santa Claus came from, but it does not…
