Why does Santa wear a red suit?
When did reindeer replace horses pulling Santa’s sleigh?
And why did they all move to the North Pole?
These were a few of the questions that Santa Claus addressed at the December meeting of the Port Townsend Yacht Club.
Santa — who is known to his fellow club members as Vince — dropped in to give a brief history of St. Nicholas, then challenged the audience to a quiz on Christmas traditions and when they first started.
For example, a Christmas tradition that predates carol singing is the creche, or stable Nativity scene, which St. Francis of Assisi introduced in the 13th century.
Caroling came into fashion shortly afterwards, but it wasn’t until the American Civil War that the custom of sending Christmas cards began, Vince said.
The most surprising statement (which came from The Autobiography of Santa Claus by Jeff Guinn): Santa and the reindeer have lived at the North Pole since 1913.
No one knows exactly why they moved to the frozen north, Vince said, or from where, but a website sponsored by Mayflower, www.yourlifeonthemove.com, offers some theories.
My favorite: The North Pole is on top of the world, so Santa has a bird’s-eye view of all the children and can see who’s been naughty and nice.
The red suit could have been designed to stand out in the snow, but the reason Santa wears red goes back to St. Nicholas.
Known for giving gifts of money, food and clothing to those in need, Nicholas was elected bishop of Nicea in 302 A.D., and bishops wore red robes.
But it wasn’t until Clement C. Moore wrote “A Visit from Saint Nicholas” in 1822 that flying reindeer became the draft animal of choice.
Santa Claus was further defined by artist Haddon Sund-blom, who was commissioned by Coca-Cola during the Depression to create a Santa for an ad campaign to sell cold drinks in December.
Sundblom, whose parents were Swedish, worked off Moore’s poem to depict the grandfatherly figure we think of as Santa.
“Ninety percent of what I wear derived from the Coca-Cola Santa,” Santa Vince told the yacht club members.
Vince, who belongs to the Amalgamated Order of Real Bearded Santas, said he was recruited 30 years ago by Ed Murphy, a Santa who appeared in Coca-Cola and Oreo cookie commercials.
Murphy, a former Marine who died in 2007, also visited children in hospitals and traveled by blimp every year to deliver Toys for Tots for the U.S. Marine Corps in Southern California.
A high point for Vince: being invited by Murphy to ride on the blimp for the return trip to Los Angeles.
One year, Murphy volunteered to come by Vince’s house and visit his four children.
By the time he arrived, two were asleep but were awoken for the visit.
The next day, one of the children told his mom, “I had the strangest dream last night that you were sitting on the sofa with Santa.”
Santa Vince said that while he enjoys talking with children and listening to what they want for Christmas — usually the latest electronic device — his favorite place to visit is Alzheimer’s homes.
When residents see Santa, he said, their faces light up.
“The memory is still there, deep down,” Santa Vince said.
“Sometimes people start talking who haven’t talked in a long time. The medical staff are amazed.”
Santa Vince said he also likes to play Santa because he is a reflection of God’s unconditional love.
Santa is supposed to decide who is naughty or nice, he said, but revealed a secret at the program.
“Santa loves everybody, no matter if they are naughty or nice,” he said.
After the program, audience members took turns having their picture taken with Santa — a tradition that probably dates back to the invention of the Polaroid camera.
An earlier snapshot of Christmas was the creche, which St. Francis introduced in 1223 to remind people of the Christ child’s humble beginnings and to show that Jesus was a gift to everyone, from lowly shepherd to king.
SantaCon comes to town
Santa sightings were common in the Emerald City last Saturday.
Taking the ferry to Seattle, my husband and I were walking from Pike Place Market up to Westlake Plaza when we saw Santa and a bevy of Christmas belles making their way along the sidewalk.
We thought they might be going into a theater, but they passed the door and continued down the street.
Then we spotted Santas partying in a restaurant bar, and more disconcertingly, Santas congregating in a back ally.
By the time we got to Westlake Plaza, we had cottoned on to what was happening and were no longer gaping at gangs of roving Santas.
One had a “naughty” patch sewn onto his suit like a name tag.
Another carried a sign that stated “All this is the result of Santaism.”
Seems that Seattle is one of many cities that hold SantaCons, with groups of people donning Santa suits and walking the city streets to promote holiday spirits as well as downing some.
The idea originated in San Francisco with a group who called it Santarchy.
SantaCon has rules, however: Participants must be in full suit and beard, not just a Santa hat, or dressed as one of Santa’s helpers.
The first group of helpers we saw had on short red “skater” skirts and tops, although one snow belle had on a white skirt, sparkly top and white platform heels.
On the www.santacon.info/Seattle-WA website, walking shoes were recommended, as participants were gathering in different locations and making their way through the streets to meet up.
A bullhorn was also recommended to keep Santa’s cortege in line, probably something that was more difficult to accomplish as the day progressed.
The underlying credo of SantaCon: Sometimes it’s nice to be naughty.
Food Bank Santa
Bob Rosen, manager of the Quilcene Community Center, called to say that Mike Kavanagh, the food bank’s personal Santa, had just dropped off another pickup load of groceries.
Kavanagh, a landscaper who lives in Poulsbo, goes to Costco and buys staples — flour, rice, beans — and delivers them to the food bank several times a year.
In a phone interview, Kavanagh said he started making the deliveries about three years ago.
He was driving over to the Olympics, where he goes hunting and fishing.
Passing through Quilcene, he saw a sign on the community center reader board announcing a food drive.
Since he was coming back the next week, Kavanagh decided to bring a bag of groceries to contribute to the food bank.
“When I went in there, I saw that their shelves were practically bare,” Kavanagh said.
“They only had some dented cans of tomato sauce, a few bags of onions and some potatoes.
“A couple of weeks later, I went to Costco and filled up the truck.”
Since then, Kavanagh has delivered a pickup load of food to the Quilcene Community Center food bank two to four times a year.
The boxes of donated food completely cover the truck bed, Rosen said.
“When I can, I go to Costco and fill up with supplies,” Kavanagh said of his visits to the Quilcene Food Bank.
“It seems like they are out there on their own.”
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Jennifer Jackson writes about Port Townsend and Jefferson County every Wednesday. To contact her with items for this column, phone 360-379-5688 or email jjackson@olypen.com.