These Vintage Santa Claus Decorations consists of a resin figurine that is 11 inches tall and 9½ inches across. These Special Christmas Gifts show a Vintage Santa Claus wearing an old fashioned, brick red, cape style hood with white fur trim, a white fur pompom and a sprig of holly with berries. Santa is also wearing a matching, long sleeved coat with fur trim down the front and around the hem and fastened with a black leather belt. Lined up around Santa are a polar bear, a raccoon, two squirrels, a rabbit and a deer. Next to the deer is a tall skinny Christmas tree that has been decorated and has several toys and gifts around it. Santa has several warm neck scarves over his arms and his forest friends are lined up to each receive one as a gift to help them stay warm through the long, cold winter.
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Polar Bears.
This great, flesh eating bear of the Far North lives on the ice floes and in the cold waters of the Arctic Ocean. Some polar bears spend part of their time on the arctic shores of Alaska, northern Canada, Greenland and Siberia. Many, however, live on or near the islands of the Arctic Ocean, and never come within hundreds of miles of the mainland. The favorite hunting grounds of this bear are the edge of the pack ice, where icebergs and broken pan ice alternate with areas of open water. Occasionally polar bears are seen in the Atlantic Ocean as far south as the Gulf of Saint Lawrence.
A full grown polar bear may be as much as nine and a half feet long and weigh about 1,000 pounds with an extreme of 1600 pounds. Its warm, dense coat of fur is white, with a tinge of yellow. Besides keeping the bear warm, this coat makes the bear hard to see against the white background of snow and ice. It can creep unseen over the ice toward the seals, which it kills for food. The polar bear has a smaller head, a longer neck and a more slender body than other bears. This build helps to make it a powerful swimmer with great agility in the water. The soles of its feet have a dense pad of fur, which keeps the bear from slipping on the surface of melting ice. Hungry polar bears have attacked human beings.
In winter the she bear enters a hollow or cave in the icebergs or burrows into a deep bank of snow. Here she gives birth to one or two naked cubs, which she defends fiercely from all enemies.
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Santa Claus, St. Nicholas.
Children everywhere love St. Nicholas, their Santa Claus! In so many countries around the world, he is known as the jolly old fellow who arrives on Christmas Eve dressed in his Santa Claus red suit, several reindeer and most remembered, a sack of toys. In other countries, St. Nicholas wears his bishop’s robe and rides a donkey or walks into town on his feast day which is December 6. No matter how he arrives, there is one thing for certain, Santa Claus brings gifts! He might drop them down the chimney, throw them through a window or leave them in a stocking or a shoe. Santa Claus might even hand them out in person depending on which house he is visiting in which country.
However in Greece, Santa Claus is not a gift giver but children love him just the same. In the Greek Orthodox religion St. Nicholas (as he is referred to) is regarded as the patron saint of children particularly orphans, and of sailors. Rather than be known as wearing the cozy red suit, in Greece, St. Nicholas is likely to be depicted draped in seaweed and dripping wet, fresh from rescuing sailors and ships in peril on the rough and stormy seas. Tradition has it that no Greek ship would sail away from land without an icon of St. Nicholas aboard for protection.
In the early 300’s AD, St. Nicholas was the bishop of Myra in Turkey. He withstood torture and imprisonment for his faith. Through it all, St. Nicholas kept a loving heart especially toward children. Centuries later, he is still admired for his faith and for his charity in bestowing gifts and kindnesses on children.
St. Nicholas’s icon is found in an honored position in Greek Orthodox churches and in many Greek homes. His feast day on December 6 is a joyful and happy occasion each year with religious services and name day parties for the many children named in his honor. The tradition continues.