Soft Cloth Santa

This Soft Cloth Santa is about 5 inches tall. He is all in a soft white cloth material with sparkly, fuzzy hair and beard. This cute Santa is also wearing a fuzzy white stocking cap with a white pom-pom on the end of it. He also has a soft white cloth coat on with fuzzy white trim on it. This Soft Cloth Santa is perfect to brighten up any Christmas tree or just to hang around the house to help bring in the Christmas spirit. Select this link to view our Christmas Ornaments.

History of Santa Claus in America.
The history of Santa Claus begins with Saint Nicholas of Myra, an early Christian bishop of Asia Minor, whose popularity throughout the middle ages and around whom numerous stories of kindness to children developed. By the 12th century he was the patron saint of children and in his name gifts were given to little ones on his feast day of December 6 or on its eve. Children left out stockings or shoes for him by the window or door, as chimneys were rare in Europe until the 1500�s. In the 16th century, religious reformers attacked the excessive devotion given to saints and in Protestant areas Saint Nicholas lost his job as bringer of Christmas gifts. He was replaced either by the Christ Child or by secularized versions of himself, usually dressed in fur. Thus in 17th and 18th century Germany figures appeared such Knecht Ruprect, Pelznickel or Belsnickel, which meant �Furry Nicholas�, who either accompanied the Christ Child, who came to be known as the Christkindl or who appeared in his stead. In other Protestant countries such as England, the giving of gifts to children declined and there was no particular gift bringer. In Scotland, the Calvinist Church forbade Christmas festivities of all kinds and so gift giving and merriment shifted to New Year�s. Select this link to view our Santa Ornaments.

During the late 1700�s in much of the United States, Christmas was a time of boisterous, outdoor fun, with feasting, noise making and wandering about at all hours of the night troubling one�s wealthier neighbors for hospitality. During the first half of the 19th century, Christmas would be remade with rowdiness and social inversion being replaced by a child centered, family oriented holiday that rendered the streets safer and the merchant happier. Central to this important social change was the invention of Santa Claus by a small group of New York men of letters. Select this link to view our Christmas Gifts.

To some in the newly independent United States things Dutch were symbols of anti British republicanism. St. Nicholas had been a rebel symbol in New York during the revolutionary war and with tension still running high in the early years of the 19th century St. Nicholas would be useful again. In 1809 American writer Washington Irving wrote a mock chronicle entitled Diedrich Knickerbockers History of New York in which he claimed that the early Dutch settlers revered Sinterklass or Saint Nicholas who visited every December. He was widely believed to ride a horse and wagon through the skies, slide down chimneys with presents and smoke a pipe. Irving seems to have invented this Dutch American attachment to Saint Nick. The first mention of him in the New York area dates to a dinner on December 23, 1773, in honor of the saint otherwise called �St. a Claus.� The next year George Pintard published a pamphlet in Dutch and English showing pictures of St. Nicholas dressed as a bishop, presents stuffed into stockings by a fireplace a good child with treats and a bad child with a switch. The verse read in part; Saint Nicholas, my dear good friend! To serve you, ever was my end, If you will, now, me something give, I�ll serve you ever while I live. Select this link to view our Christmas Figurines.

Within two years the new legend of Santa Claus had spread far enough to provoke an attempt to disprove his existence. In 1812 Samuel Woods, in his false Stories corrected tried to debunk Santa Claus, but the legend was already too powerful. In 1822 a poem entitled �A Visit Form Saint Nicholas,� later known as �The Night Before Christmas,� elaborated on the nature of Santa Claus. The poem was written by Clement Clarke Moore for his children and was published anonymously in the Troy Sentinel on December 23, 1823 but it was not until 1827 that Moore associated himself with the poem. In the poem we are given eight reindeer and are informed of their names. We see an elfin character, friendly and non judgmental, clothed in fur. We note the descent down the chimney and we see the Christmas Eve connection reinforced. S