February 17, 2026 R⚖️M
She was just a little girl, 7 years old. Finding out that Santa Claus was never real. It broke her heart so much that it felt like the ending of the world. The feeling that she was going through was really traumatic. She just couldn’t believe that Santa Claus was made up, not real, just a fake and fictional character. To her, Santa meant the world. Santa Claus made her feel happy. Santa was love and because of him, she tried her best to be good. Anything so she can try to try to catch Santa in the act of gift giving, but she always seemed to miss Santa’s sighting. It felt to her as if, with just a blink of an eye, she missed Santa Claus.
She cried when the truth of Santa came out. feeling the pain of heartbreak. Crazily crying after her heart got torn to pieces, her sisters were laughing about it, for they already knew that Santa Claus was not real. What was so embarrassing was that she was the oldest from her sisters. She felt alone hurting in herself.
Why was it so impacting to her of Santa? Why was Santa so special? What made this individual unto being so important?
Like everything else, we would assume that everyone would have a different understanding and review on one’s answers to this question, depending on one’s experiences and situations gone through, when raised as a child. For some, there are countries cultures and faith traditions that historically never knew about Santa Claus. Basically never heard of him. Mostly Santa comes down to culture, religion and exposure to Western media
Some countries or places like parts of Africa, Royal Asia, Middle East indigenous communities worldwide and isolated tribes, Christmas wasn’t celebrated at all or existed with or without Santa.
The character Santa is tied to Christian culture so in many religions like Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Indigenous spiritual systems, Santa Claus wasnt included in the seasonal holiday, but still was known of that the character to be used for Christmas .
These days Santa is recognized as a commercial symbol and not a belief or tradition
St. Nicholas Statue
The origins of Santa, as far as I know, came because of a person named Saint Nicholas (c. 270–343 AD). Saint Nicholas was a 4th-century Greek bishop of Myra (modern-day Turkey) renowned for his secret gift-giving to the poor, piety, and miracles. A Saint for children, whom secretly was gift giving to the poor. Then the Protestant Reformation in the 1500s led to the suppression of St. Nicholas traditions in many European regions, as the veneration of saints was discouraged.
[Based on forensic facial reconstructions of his 4th-century skeletal remains, the real Saint Nicholas was a short (approx. 5-foot-6-inch), olive-skinned Greek man with a heavy jaw, dark brown eyes, and a broken nose. He was 60-year-old]
The Puritans were particularly intense about this. To them, the “Twelve Days of Christmas” were nothing more than a pagan hangover mixed with Catholic “popery.” When the Puritans gained power in England (and later in the American colonies), they didn’t just target St. Nicholas—they targeted the entire holiday.
So, from
The “Anti-Christmas” Laws: In 1647, the English Parliament under Oliver Cromwell officially abolished the feast of Christmas, calling it a “popish festival.”
2. The New England Ban: In the American colonies, the Massachusetts Bay Colony passed a law in 1659 that made celebrating Christmas a criminal offense. If you were caught skipping work or feasting, you were fined five shillings, something shifted.
What came to be,, Despite the legal bans, The Rebranding: Because people still wanted to give gifts, the reformers tried to replace St. Nicholas with the “Christkindl” (the Christ Child). Over time, this name morphed into the Americanized “Kris Kringle.”
So, St. Nicholas survived anyways, giving this tradition to persist secretly, particularly in Holland as Sinterklaas(The Dutch), and evolved into the secularized, gift-giving figure of St. Nicholas, when continuing to celebrate the gift giving of Christmas, where the figure called “Father Christmas” emerged. He wasn’t a bishop; he was just a jolly personification of good food and wine. transformed from a saintly bishop into the secular, commercialized Santa Claus, especially after moving to the United States when other folklore were mixed to create Santa Claus.
Most people already know that there’s so many movies and so many songs pertaining to Santa Claus. Movies can go from holy, funny and evil.
Some movies include: Ernest Saves Christmas (1988), Violent Night (2022), Santa Claus the Movie (1985), Dear Santa (2024), Santa Claws (2014), A Christmas Story (1983), How the Grinch Stole Christmas(2000) and Krampus (2015)
.
Some Songs are Eartha Kitt “Santa Baby”, The Beach Boys “Little Saint Nick”, Gene Autry “Here Comes Santa Claus”, and Dolly Parton “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus”.
Sad and true is when bad things happen that shouldn’t happen on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. Like when Santa is a negative being, when it becomes a true life horror film. Like the time, when the family were murdered by someone dressed up as Santa in California:
https://people.com/california-christmas-massacre-man-santa-killed-ex-family-11875363
There is even a place where there are many Santa Clauses, that live their life as Santa Claus 24/7 . These people love to portray Santa Claus character 24/7, because they love spreading the love, joy and kindness of giving. Seeing happy faces of children getting Santa’s attention and gifts, makes their day complete.
There is a black Santa Claus. It emerged to help the African-American community to enjoy this holiday and see themselves represented.
First,
- In the Harlem Renaissance Origins the legendary tap dancer Bill Bojangles Robinson became Harlan’s first negro Santa Claus in 1936 at Christmas Eve parties
- In the 1960s black Santa became a political tool as a civil rights symbol for empowerment. In 1969, civil rights leaders fought for department stores. If one were to conceive a black Santa Claus than so it can be done to have a black president
- Then, during the Black Power movement, some Santa’s wore black velvet dashiki’s instead of traditional suits to celebrate cultural Pride, known to be called “Soul Santa”
The Mall of America in Suburban Minneapolis hired its first ever Black Santa in 2016, which made headlines, D. Sinclair, aka the Real Black Santa
There is even the first Asian Santa Claus that was presented in the Mall of America and Bloomington Minnesota on November 2022, Allan Siu
As crazy as that sounds we also have a Latino Santa Claus called Pancho Claus. Richard Reyes has been playing Pancho Claus since 1981, offering toys to low income mostly Latino kids for 30 plus years, but the Pancho Santa dates back to 1971, when local American GI Forum decided to infuse a little Hispanic culture into Santa giving him a sombrero and serape, and held the big party at the park giving out candy and fruit to 3000 children. Instead of coming from the North Pole, Santa come from the South Pole
like, the IBRBS (formerly known as the International Brotherhood of Real Bearded Santas
D. Sinclair, aka The Real Black Santa
reborn in December 2012, from the somewhat troubled history of some of the prior Santa groups, who’ve planned to become the preeminent Santa Community in the World; a leading organization of professional Santas, Mrs Clauses, and supporting wives. Thousands of volunteer hours have been contributed each year to make IBRBS a member-driven, responsive group based on the legends and history of Santa Claus and a guiding set of principles from their goals and tenets.
Of course, to be Santa Claus one must go to School, International University of Santa Claus (IUSC), which is a premier training program for professional and volunteer services and mrs. Clauses.
It’s the largest world’s largest Santa School celebrating over at 5,200 graduate, 23 years of training and support for Santas and Mrs claus.
https://www.school4santas.com/
Now this is something to think about🧑💻