Our Santa Christmas Ornaments
are four inches tall, is carrying a pack of toys and gifts over one shoulder and a lantern in his other hand. These Santa Ornaments are wearing a long brick red coat with fur trim around the collar, down the front and around the hem and cuffs. There is gold trim down the front and around the hem and the cuffs have a second blue trim with green leaves above the fur. His Santa Claus Hats are brick red with a blue and gold trim above the fur cuff, the pompom is also fur. The Santa Christmas ornaments hang from a gold cord. Select to see a complete listing of our Christmas Decorations Ideas.
History of Santa Claus is Coming to Town.
Santa of the Year Award.
History of Silent Night.
Information on St. Nicholas.
In 1995 the Santa Claus of Greenland Foundation instituted the Santa of the Year Award to be given each Christmas “to an individual person, who is internationally recognized for humanistic views and deeds and who is committed to furthering awareness of the need for improvements in the welfare of children throughout the world.” That year President Nelson Mandela of South Africa was given the award by the premier of Greenland, along with $100,000 to be used for children’s charities. Select this link to view our Unique Christmas Ornaments.
The most widely sung Christmas carol in the world began as a poem called, “Stille Nacht” by Austrian priest Josef Mohr in 1816. two years later, preparing for the Christmas Eve service in Oberndorf’s St. Nicholas church, Mohr discovered that the organ was not functioning. Legend has attributed the failure to mice gnawing through he bellows, but it is more likely that the organ in the riverside church suffered from excessive moisture and rust in its works. Mohr asked the organist Franz Gruber to compose a guitar setting for his poem and the resulting composition was sung at the midnight service.
The song would probably have been performed only on that single occasion and forgotten had a visiting musician not seen the music in the church in the early 1820’s and taken it away with him. It was played throughout Austria and Germany for the next few years, growing in popularity. The authorship of the piece remained a mystery until 1854, by which time Josef Mohr was dead. The carols had been attributed to many different composers but the director of the Royal Court Choir of Berlin, where “Silent Night” had become the favorite of King Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia, researched the origins of the carol and succeeded in having its true creators credited for their work.
The song has been translated into over 300 languages. American Episcopal priest John Freeman Young wrote the English version in 1863. Select this link to view our Snowman Christmas Ornament.
St. Nicholas lived in the late third and early fourth centuries. Very little is known about his life. By the middle ages, however, he had become one of Europe’s most venerated non biblical saints. In France and Germany more than two thousand churches carry the saint’s name, bearing silent testimony to the intensity of past devotions. St. Nicholas was the Christmas season gift bringer in parts of northern Europe. His legend and the customs surrounding it traveled to America with European immigrants. In the United States St. Nicholas was transformed into Santa Claus. His new American name evolved from his old Dutch name, Sinterklass. Although Nicholas’s popularity has declined considerably since medieval times, some Europeans still celebrate his feast day, which falls on December 6. Check out our entire selection of Christmas Ornament Sets.
