Also known as: St. Nicholas; Kris Kringle; Father Christmas
Santa Claus is the mythical figure who delivers toys to children around the world on Christmas Eve. According to legend Santa lives at the North Pole, oversees a toy workshop run by busy elves, and flies around the world in a sled pulled by eight reindeer: Blitzen, Comet, Cupid, Dancer, Dasher, Donder, Prancer, and Vixen. (A ninth reindeer with a shiny nose, Rudolph, was introduced in Gene Autry‘s 1949 country music hit "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.") The name Santa Claus was derived from Sinterklaas, the Dutch term for the ancient Christian figure of Saint Nicholas.
The Santa Claus myth was popularized in America by the 1823 poem "A Visit From Saint Nicholas," attributed to Clement Moore. The poem begins "Twas the night before Christmas"... An 1897 editorial by Frank P. Church in the New York Sun coined the famous phrase "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus." Church was replying to a letter from a young reader, Virginia O‘Hanlon, who asked if Santa Claus really existed... According to Microsoft‘s Encarta, the nickname Kris Kringle evolved from the German words for Christ child, Christkindl.
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