We all know Santa Claus, right? A jolly man who lives somewhere in the North Pole, travels the world in one night on his sleigh pulled by reindeer to deliver presents to all the good boys and girls and give coal to those who are naughty. We all know about Santa Claus, but do you know about the real Santa Claus? If you don’t, then keep reading as I’m going to go into the history of the real Santa Claus, also known as St Nicholas. Now, most of St Nicholas’s early days are lost to time but we can still get a good picture of what it looked like. St Nicholas was born into a wealthy Christian family in a port town named on the Mediterranean Sea in 270CE/AD. During his young years, his uncle taught him 2 important skills, charity and devotion. Later, he lost his parents to a plague which devastated him, but he was left behind a big fortune, which he would put to use to help people. One example is when he overheard a merchant talking about his 3 daughters and how he didn’t have enough money for them to get married. So later that night Nicholas approached the merchant’s house and threw a bag of gold through the window. He repeated this 2 more times on 2 different nights but on the 3rd night the merchant caught him, the merchant thanked him for everything he’d done and offered everything he owned as a repayment, but Nicholas said that all he wanted was for his name to be kept secret. Which didn’t happen so he left town for greener and secretive pastures. Now the rest of his life is kind of glossed over but we do know that he spent his remaining days devoting himself to charity, helping innocents, and other kind acts. He kept doing this until December 6th, 343CE/AD when Nicholas passed away. As the stories of St. Nicholas passed on throughout history, the 6th of December was chosen for the holiday of St Nicholas Day which you celebrate by giving gifts in secret. Over the centuries, the idea of St. Nicholas changed many times to eventually become the Santa Claus we all know and love. Also, if I went into detail about each change St. Nicholas went through, this would be way too long. I hope you learn something today about St. Nicholas, if you want to learn more then check out the video “Santa Claus: A Superhero Origin Story” by Extra History on YouTube. Have a Merry Christmas or a Happy Hanukkah!