The historian who says “There really is a Santa Claus”

Most of us grew up with a cartoon version of Christmas: a jolly man in a red suit at the North Pole, flying reindeer, elves, and a vaguely “pagan” Christmas tree that serious Christians are allegedly supposed to frown at. William J. Federer, however, is not content with cartoons. He’s a respected Christian historian, best-selling author, and the man behind There Really Is a Santa Claus: The History of St. Nicholas and Christmas Holiday Traditions, as well as the popular AmericanMinute.com daily history emails.

In a three-part video interview with me, Federer walks us through the gritty, deeply Christian roots of Christmas traditions that have been trivialised, commercialised, or misrepresented as pagan. Far from being a sugary distraction, the true story of Santa Claus and Christmas is about persecution, courage, pro-life conviction, and the triumph of the gospel over paganism.

Was Santa Claus Real?

Under the Roman Empire, the church was born into a one-world, anti-Christian state. For three centuries Christians were thrown to lions, burned as human torches, and hunted from province to province. It was in this world that Nicholas was born in what is now Turkey, then part of the Roman Empire.

Nicholas became the most beloved saint of the Greek church – to them what St Peter is to Roman Catholics or St Patrick to the Irish. He was a genuine, flesh-and-blood Christian bishop of Myra, not a North Pole mascot.

Early in life, Nicholas embraced a wave of “pietism” that urged believers to give away their possessions and live wholly devoted to God. He took that call seriously. Wanting no credit, he began sneaking through his town at night, throwing money through the windows of the poor. The most famous story tells of a bankrupt father whose three daughters were at risk of being taken into sex slavery by creditors. Nicholas secretly provided three bags of gold on three separate nights, giving each girl a dowry so she could marry instead of being trafficked. The gold was said to have landed in shoes or stockings drying by the fire, planting the seed for our traditions of stockings and secret gift-giving.

Art across the Middle Ages depicts Nicholas as a bishop with three golden balls, symbolising the bags of gold he used to rescue those girls. Those same three balls later became the sign of pawnbrokers, a commercial echo of a Christian act of radical generosity.

Was St Nicholas a Soft, Jolly Figure – or a Christian Activist?

Far from a sentimental grandfather figure, Nicholas lived through savage persecution. Under the emperor Diocletian he was imprisoned and nearly martyred. When Constantine legalised Christianity in 313 AD, Nicholas emerged from prison and immediately began preaching publicly against the state’s pagan practices: human sacrifice, temple prostitution and the exposure of unwanted infants.

In the Roman world, a father could simply refuse a newborn; the child would be abandoned to die or be taken and raised for prostitution or slavery. Nicholas vigorously opposed this, just as Christians today oppose abortion. He also confronted the occult practices of divination and the lurid immorality surrounding temples like that of Diana at Ephesus. If he lived today, Federer argues, Nicholas would be known as a pro-life, pro-marriage, anti-LGBT sexual revolution activist, not a neutral holiday mascot.

He also defended the faith doctrinally. When the first major heresy, Arianism, claimed Jesus was a created being “less than God”, Constantine summoned bishops from across the Christian world to the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD. There, Nicholas famously slapped the heretic Arius in his zeal for the deity of Christ – the very doctrine at the heart of Christmas. The “jolly old St Nick” of legend once risked censure and punishment for defending the truth that the baby in the manger is fully God, fully man.

Nicholas’s courage extended to politics. One ancient account tells of a corrupt governor arranging the execution of innocent men to cover his own crimes. Nicholas reportedly rushed to the scene, seized the executioner’s sword, threw it down and exposed the governor’s secrets in public. Under conviction, the governor begged Nicholas to pray for mercy. If Nicholas were alive now, Federer suggests, we’d see him confronting corrupt officials on the steps of Parliament, not just posing for shopping-centre photos.

Isn’t Christmas Pagan? The Real Story of 25 December and the 12 Days

One of the most popular modern claims is that Christmas is “just a baptised pagan festival” tied to the winter solstice. Federer patiently dismantles that myth by pointing to the church’s concern with dates long before the debate over solstice.

Luke’s Gospel tells us that John the Baptist’s father, Zechariah, served in the temple “of the course of Abijah”. Ancient Jewish records, confirmed by the Dead Sea Scrolls, connect that priestly rota to late September, around the Day of Atonement. From there, the early church calculated John’s conception, then counted forward six months to Mary’s conception of Jesus (traditionally March 25), and nine more months to His birth – December 25. In other words, the Christian reasoning runs from Scripture and Jewish calendars, not from copying pagans.

Eastern Christians historically focused more on January 6, the Epiphany, marking the visit of the Magi and Christ’s manifestation to the nations. Unable to decide which date was “holier”, church leaders in 567 AD declared that the entire period from 25 December to 6 January would be a season of “holy days” – the original twelve days of Christmas. Over time “holy day” simply slurred into “holiday”, but the season itself is emphatically Christian from start to finish.

Yes, pagans had solstice festivals. But the church’s instinct was not to join them; it was to proclaim Christ’s lordship right on top of them – replacing pagan feasts with celebrations of the true Light of the world.

Are Christmas Trees Pagan?

Another modern worry is that Christmas trees are secretly pagan. The history, again, runs the other way.

In 8th-century Germany, pagan tribes worshipped Thor and Woden, performing sacrifices before a sacred oak at Geismar. On Christmas Eve, the missionary Boniface (also known as Winfred) walked into the village, raised an axe, and chopped Thor’s oak down, dramatically challenging the false god to defend his own tree if he could. With the idol shattered and no lightning bolt forthcoming, Boniface pointed to a nearby evergreen and declared, “Let this be the tree of the Christ child. Let there be no more shedding of blood tonight.”

The evergreen’s unchanging colour in winter became a natural symbol of eternal life. Its triangular shape was soon used to teach the Trinity – Father, Son and Holy Spirit, three in one. Centuries later, Martin Luther is said to have brought an evergreen into his home on Christmas Eve, setting candles on its branches to show his children a picture of the starry sky over Bethlehem the night Christ was born. The idea of lights on the tree also sits comfortably alongside the Jewish Feast of Dedication, Hanukkah, which Jesus Himself observed and which already featured candlelight in mid-winter.

Far from being a pagan holdover, the Christmas tree is a symbol of Christian defiance over paganism and a visual sermon about the eternal, triune God and the birth of His Son.

How Did St Nicholas Become “Santa Claus”?

As centuries passed, Nicholas’s story travelled. His relics were moved from what is now Turkey to Bari in Italy when Muslim armies threatened to desecrate Christian graves. The Italians eagerly adopted his gift-giving traditions, which sometimes slid into distraction. To refocus attention on Christ, St Francis of Assisi introduced live nativity scenes in 1223, deliberately drawing eyes back to Jesus in the manger.

The Reformation added another layer. Martin Luther, wary of an overload of saints’ days and statues, ended the liturgical focus on saints while keeping the German love of gift-giving. He shifted presents from Nicholas’s feast on 6 December to Christmas Day and insisted that “all gifts come from the Christ-child” – the Christkindl. Over time, Christkindl morphed in popular speech into “Kris Kringle”, which originally meant Christ, not Santa.

The Dutch, who loved St Nicholas, carried his traditions to New Amsterdam (later New York), naming their first church there after him and sailing with his figure on their ships’ prows. In Dutch, Sint Niklaus slurred into “Santa Claus”. American writers like Washington Irving and Clement Clarke Moore (“’Twas the night before Christmas…”) reshaped him into a smaller, pipe-smoking, sleigh-riding gift-giver. Civil War cartoonist Thomas Nast fixed him in the North and added the North Pole motif. Coca-Cola’s 20th-century advertising then globalised Nast’s red-suited, full-sized, jolly Santa image.

Under all those cultural layers, Federer insists, is still the real Nicholas: a Greek Christian bishop, imprisoned for Christ, who gave generously to the poor, defended sound doctrine, opposed sexual immorality and paganism, and stood up for the vulnerable. Santa Claus is simply the heavily mythologised version of a very real, very courageous Christian.

Just Scratching the Surface

This article can only skim the surface of the rich, surprising, and deeply Christian history behind Santa Claus, Christmas trees, dates, and traditions that moderns either take for granted or dismiss as “pagan”. My full three-part interview video series with William Federer goes into far greater depth, tracing the story from the Roman persecutions to the Reformation and right through to Coke-red Santa. What you’ve just read is only a brief summary of that much more comprehensive and detailed exploration – so enjoy the videos!

Dave Pellowe is the founder of 'Church And State', a nationwide ministry equipping Christians to be public salt and light: redeeming the culture and advocating for righteousness in government. Dave teaches Christians how God’s unchanging Word answers all the controversial questions. Specialising in what God says about complex ethical and social issues, Dave Pellowe is a guest speaker at churches, youth groups and Christian schools, TV, radio and podcast interviews and other secular and Christian forums where love of Truth and honest thinking are valued. [more]

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