Letters From The Time Traveler: My Very Favorite Christmas- 1845

Dearest,

As I pen this, it is a week until Christmas here in 2024. I miss Christmas from the old days. I write my memories today to share everything I miss. And to teach the world how Christmas used to be.

My ancestors the early Dutch settlers, did not celebrate Christmas the way we do today. They believed in the patron saint St. Nicholas. Every year, they would hang their stockings, waiting for gifts from St. Nick.

Early Dutch settlers of New York considered St. Nicholas to be their patron saint and practiced a yearly ritual of hanging stockings to receive presents on St. Nicholas Eve, in early December. Washington Irving, in his fanciful History of New York, mentioned that St. Nicholas had a wagon he could ride “over the tops of trees” when he brought “his yearly presents to children.”

The Dutch word “Sinterklaas” for St. Nicholas evolved into the English “Santa Claus,” thanks in part to a New York City printer, William Gilley, who published an anonymous poem referring to “Santeclaus” in a children’s book in 1821. The poem was also the first mention of a character based on St. Nicholas having a sleigh, in this case, pulled by a single reindeer.