In honor of the upcoming holiday of Xmas, I hope to recount its beginnings with astounding detail for you. As we all know, Xmas is the purely commercial holiday that was once the Catholic holiday of Christmas. Few people know this, but Xmas does have a beginning of its own. That is the holiday we celebrate today, and that is the story I will remind you of now!
In the year 1631 in the Dutch Republic, a band of hoodlums were in the midst of conspiring to gain power. Unfortunately for this band of hoodlum deviants, they did not have the proper leadership and were forced to resort to take power from adjacent ghetto's wherever possible. Nicolas Myra was born to this underprivileged group.
Myra was forced to partake in many wayward activities, and for the most part enjoyed himself. When the group amassed enough power, they began to move into wealthier areas to rob and to loot. One evening the group went to a very wealthy area and expanded their robbery and looting to raping and murdering. The next evening, Myra protested to the group to not continue in this manner, as they would soon attract too much attention of the Crown Republic. Refusing, the group continued their assault of the large estate. Myra retreated into the night fearing retribution.
Members of the clan were caught and held in the prisons, awaiting their murder. All known associates of the caught few would be hunted down and would face the same penalty. Fearing this, Myra returned much of the valuables stolen to the rightful owners over the next few evenings. On the 4th night, he had quietly entered a household, but while attempting to escape he was caught himself. The family notified the Crown Republic, and Myra was granted a stay of execution in return for his acts of attempting to return the stolen belongings, and for his testimony against the members already caught and the ones still at large.
As word spread of the terrible crimes and of the subsequent capture, Myra became something of an icon of good fortune. Through misinterpretations and embellished story telling, Myra had become something a myth, a larger than life character. Although some of the truth still made its way into the lore, many had forgotten of the atrocities committed by Myra himself, and choose to believe only his role in the capture of the murderers and rapists and Myra's return of people's belongings. They believed them to be gifts. So rarely did you acquire things of wealth, let alone reacquire something that had since been stolen.
As time had gone on, the story of Nicolas Myra had turned him into a saint, a Saint Nicolas. His quiet return to the households had been translated into St. Nick climbing down the chimney, as that would be the only rational openings in the estates defenses that would be possible to penetrate. The milk and cookies left for this St. Nick became the hopeful bargaining chip so that the family would hope not to be raped and/or murdered. As time went on, people began to purchase gifts for one another to reenact the return of ones stolen belongings. In some private circles, the noise of Myra's movements could be heard by the light clanging of the returned valuables, and through time became interpreted as his sleigh. The popular belief that St. Nicolas had flying reindeer guiding his sleigh was started from an anonymous short poem "A Visit From St. Nicholas" in 1823. Although the poem was written in America, it is believed that Clement Clarke Moore wrote the poem, and Moore was of Dutch descent.
And today, Xmas is the holiday we all know and love it to be. So be careful - be sure to buy your loved ones gifts, and leave them milk and cookies, otherwise they'll rape and murder you, right? Hey, that's the lesson I learned from this story. Thanks Saint Nick!
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