By John Lewington, RSGS Volunteer (Fair Maid's House and Collections)

Asia Minor in The Geography Atlas of Ancient & Modern, by Samuel Butler published by Longmans in 1827

“Ho, Ho, Ho” is one of the traditional sounds of the Christmas season, the laugh of a jolly gentleman who ushers in a season of goodwill to all, but where, literally, on Earth does he come from?

In the UK we call him Father Christmas, but he is known differently in those parts of the world who have a similar tradition of kindliness and gift-giving at this time of the year. And that takes us way back to the seasons, since there comes a point in the year when the sun begins to return to us in the northern hemisphere and the consequent return of growth of vegetation, and the prospect of something better to eat than the limited rations of the deep midwinter- optimism abounds!

Father Christmas or Santa Claus (also known as Saint Nicholas, Saint Nick, Kris Kringle, Santa, or Klaus) is a legendary figure originating in Western Christian culture who is said to bring gifts during the late evening and overnight hours on Christmas Eve. He is said to accomplish this with the aid of Christmas elves, who make the toys in his workshop, and with the aid of flying reindeer who pull his sleigh through the air. ‘Santa Claus’ is a phonetic derivation of ‘Sinterklass’ in Dutch.

The popular conception of Santa Claus originates from folklore traditions surrounding the 4th-century Christian bishop Saint Nicholas, the patron saint of children. Saint Nicholas became renowned for his reported generosity and secret gift-giving. This conception also shares similarities with the English figure of Father Christmas, and they are both now popularly regarded as the same person. Saint Nicholas was a 4th-century Greek Christian bishop of Myra in the region of Lycia in the Roman Empire, today in Turkey, in the province of Antalya, to which you may have flown on your way to the Turkish Riviera or Cappadocia.

The Location of Myra

Nicholas was known for his generous gifts to the poor, in particular presenting the three impoverished daughters of a pious Christian with dowries so that they would not have to become prostitutes. He was very religious from an early age and devoted his life entirely to Christianity. After his death, his body was entombed in a sarcophagus within the church in Myra. In 1087, while the Greek Christian inhabitants of Myra were subjugated by the newly arrived Muslim Seljuq dynasty, and soon after their Greek Orthodox church had been declared to be in schism by the Catholic church (1054 AD), a group of merchants from the Italian city of Bari removed the major bones of Nicholas's skeleton from his sarcophagus, leaving all the minor fragments in the church sarcophagus.

These were later taken by Venetian sailors during the First Crusade and placed in Venice, where a church to St. Nicholas, the patron of sailors, was built on the San Nicolò al Lido. St. Nicholas' vandalized sarcophagus can still be seen in the St. Nicholas Church in Myra. This tradition was confirmed in two important scientific investigations of the relics in Bari and Venice, which revealed that the relics in the two Italian cities belong to the same skeleton. Saint Nicholas was later claimed as a patron saint of many diverse groups, from archers, sailors, and children to pawnbrokers.

He is also the patron saint of both Amsterdam and Moscow. Santa is generally depicted as a portly, jolly, white-bearded man, often with spectacles, wearing a red coat with white fur collar and cuffs, white-fur-cuffed red trousers, a red hat trimmed with white fur, a black leather belt and boots, carrying a bag full of gifts for children. He is popularly associated with a deep, hearty laugh, frequently rendered in Christmas literature as "ho, ho, ho!"

Of the twenty places in the world called “Saint-Nicolas”, they can all be found in four countries throughout the world, all north of the Equator.

There are 15 places named Saint-Nicolas in France :- Rhone-Alpes; Picardie; Pays de la Loire ; Nord-Pas-de-Calais ; Midi-Pyrenees ; Lorraine ; Limousin ; Haute-Normandie ; Champagne-Ardenne ; Centre ; Bretagne ; Bourgogne ; Basse=Normandie, Auvergne ; Aquitaine

There are three places named Saint-Nicolas in Belgium, two in Liege and one in Hainault.

The one place named Saint-Nicolas in Italy is in Valle d’Aosta.

The one place named Saint-Nicolas in Canada is in Quebec.