Unwrapping the origins of famous Christmas symbols
Professor Kyle Smith, who teaches a course on Christmas’s history, shares insights on how holiday symbols and traditions have changed over time.

As the holiday season approaches, familiar Christmas archetypes begin to emerge—Santa Claus, reindeer, and other festive staples. While Christmas originally marked the celebration of Jesus’s birth, many of today’s traditions have roots outside Christianity. But not all of today’s Christmas traditions come from Christianity. Christmas has gained several new ideas and traditions over time, many influenced by modern culture and consumerism.

Kyle Smith, professor of Christianity in the History of Religions program at the University of Toronto Mississauga (UTM), shared the origins of different modern Christmas archetypes in an interview with The Medium. Professor Smith currently teaches RLG3375H, Christmas: A History, at UTM and is currently working on his book about the historical figure Saint Nicholas.

Saint Nicholas: The original Santa Claus

Professor Smith revealed that little is known about Saint Nicholas, except that he became bishop in Myra—a city that belongs to the region we now call Türkiye. “Based on the stories that we have, Saint Nicholas was born in the Roman province of Lycia in the late third century and died somewhere around the 340s.”

Professor Smith noted that details about his life are historically conflated with another Nicholas—a monk called Nicholas of Sion who lived a few centuries later. The church and historians at the time combined both these Nicholas’s lives together to produce the tale of Saint Nick.

From historical depictions, Professor Smith narrated the story that cemented Saint Nicholas’s status as Santa Claus. In Myra, there was a man named Nicholas, a widower who had three daughters. Although Nicholas was once a wealthy man, some failed investments caused him to live in abject poverty. He was on the verge of having to sell his three daughters into prostitution so they could survive.

Professor Smith mentioned that though the story has many variations, a common theme is that Saint Nicholas comes at night and throws a bag of gold through the window of Nicholas’s house. Saint Nicholas did this for three nights, giving each daughter enough money to be married and avoid prostitution.

Professor Smith emphasized that the theme of the story is establishing that Saint Nicholas “is this nocturnal gift giver to young people,” which ended up setting the foundation for Santa Claus.

Later versions of the story give rise to many current Christmas traditions. Some versions of the story mention that the girls each hung their stockings up to dry by the chimney, which is where the tradition of hanging stockings on chimneys comes from.

Several other versions depict Saint Nicholas landing on the roof of the house and dropping presents down the chimney, giving rise to the lore of how Santa Claus pops down the Chimney. Professor Smith noted that even the tradition of cookies and milk for Santa comes from German and Dutch traditions of preparing cookies in the shape of Sinterklaas—their interpretation of Saint Nicholas.

According to Professor Smith, the modern representation of Santa Claus grew out of American consumerism. In the 19th century, he was used for gift-giving advertisements.Even the image of Santa Claus in a red suit does not come from Christianity but from a Coca-Cola campaign devised by Haddon Sunbloom. Professor Smith even noted that the campaign helped create and drive Santa’s global presence.

Where did Santa’s elves come from?

When asked about other archetypes related to Santa Claus, Professor Smith stated that Santa’s elves partly originate from Clement Clarke Moore’s 1823 poem, A Visit from St. Nicholas, where he describes Saint Nicholas as an elf. The idea of elves as helpers was further reinforced by European versions of Saint Nicholas that describe him as having helpers.

Why do we associate red and green colours with Christmas?

According to Professor Smith, green was previously associated with the Winter solstice, which then was associated with Christmas time. The red and green colours also come from the tradition of using evergreens, holly branches, and other similar plants in homes for Christmas and tree decorating. 

Professor Smith explained that families brought “plants that can survive in the winter into the house as a way of bringing something from the springtime to tide over the coldest time of the year.” The vibrant red of holly berries contrasted with the deep green of its branches came to symbolize resilience for families, eventually cementing these colours as iconic staples of Christmas traditions.

The colour red also comes from the illustrator Thomas Nast. Professor Smith explained that while Santa was initially depicted wearing brown fur, Nast later illustrated him as wearing red. Professor Smith hypothesizes that this change came from Nast’s childhood memory of Germany, where Saint Nicholas was often depicted wearing “red as a bishop.”

Why is Santa’s hometown the North Pole?

Nast was also the one who linked the North Pole with Santa’s home. At that point in history, “no explorer had actually made it to the North Pole,” Professor Smith revealed. Thus, the North Pole became this fantastical location for people in the 19th century, much like Narnia is for us now.

Where did Santa’s herd of reindeer come from?

Professor Smith noted that the first historical reference to reindeer predates Moore’s famous poem, appearing in a small book titled The Children’s Friend, which depicts Santa in a sleigh pulled by a single reindeer. In Moore’s poem, the lone reindeer transforms into a team of eight. However, Professor Smith remains uncertain why reindeer was used in the book and poem, as earlier tales mention flying horses. He suggests that the shift likely occurred in the 19th century US.

Christmas beyond a religious holiday

Many people who are not religious or Christians actively celebrate the holiday of Christmas. Professor Smith stated, “I think there are plenty [of] religious holidays [with] many cultural elements to them as well that have nothing to do with piety.”

Professor Smith noted that Christmas was historically seen as a “large drunken feast,” and there were commercialized elements such as poor people entering homes and offering to sing for a drink in exchange. But over time, we now see it as a “cozy holiday for children and spending time with family.”

In recent years, you hear many people say Christmas has been overly commercialized. However, many of our beloved Christmas traditions and values originate from commercialization. For example, despite Japan’s low Christian population, Christmas is huge in Japan. Professor Smith explained that a major reason why everyone celebrates it is because of a marketing campaign from decades ago by KFC. Even today, many Japanese people line up at KFCs around Christmas due to this commercialized tradition.

Today, according to Professor Smith, Christmas “has nothing to do with religion, it just becomes a cultural phenomenon.”