Have you ever heard the poem that starts out: "Twas the night before Christmas when all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, in hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there...?"  This poem about Santa Claus was written in 1822 by Clement Clarke Moore, a wealthy Manhattan resident, and the son of the first Episcopal Bishop of New York. As Christmas draws near, everyone is busy shopping, giving presents, enjoying parties, and singing some Christmas songs. If we look around, we will come across a plump man in a red suit. We can find him in our shopping malls; people decorate their homes with him -- big and small, animated and non-animated plump man in a red suit; we get Christmas cards with pictures of him. We know him as Santa Claus. The department stores hire Santas to lure customers with children into their stores, and even the charities dress volunteers in Santa Claus outfits in order to increase donations. How does Santa Claus fit with Christmas when we celebrate the birthday of Our Savior?
Santa Claus is none other than St. Nicholas who was born in Patara approximately 270 years after Christ. Patara is about 350 miles northwest of Bethlehem on the shores of the Mediterranean, in Lycia, which is today part of Turkey. There are no hard facts of history, but this not a necessary obstacle to the popularity of this great saint. The Church in the East and the West honor him with great devotion on December 6.
There is a lot of admiration for this saint in our Catholic tradition, and all this admiration is expressed in colorful stories through the centuries. The best known story of St. Nicholas was connected to charity. There was a poor man who was unable to provide dowries for his daughters of marriageable age. St. Nicholas secretly tossed a bag full of gold through the poor man's window on three separate occasions so the man could give his daughters in marriage. In Europe and other English speaking communities, this story became very popular along with the practice of giving gifts to people on his feast day. Gradually, St. Nicholas became, by a twist of the tongue, Santa Claus. Nicholas was chosen Bishop of Myra and became famous for his leadership and his extraordinary piety and zeal,  including many astonishing miracles. The custom of giving gifts and addressing St. Nicholas as Santa Claus continue to spread in Germany, Switzerland, and the Netherlands, and giving gifts in his name also continued not only on December 6, but during the entire Christmas Season.
  The Dutch Protestants of New Amsterdam, who had converted the popish saint into a Nordic magician (Santa Claus = Sint Klaes = St. Nicholas), helped to continue and spread the custom in America of honoring the saint and giving gifts. A basilica was built in Rome, St. Nicholas in the Jail of Tully (in Carcere) between the end of the sixth and the beginning of the seventh centuries. From the thirteen century through the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century, St. Nicholas was the popular saint of Christendom. He was a well-known saint and patron of children, maidens, students, and trades people. So now we have found an answer to the question: why is Santa Claus found at the shopping malls? Originally, however, people in the New World wanted nothing to do with saints...

So St. Nicholas became just another Catholic saint, except that he was very popular for the Dutch settlers of New Amsterdam. But when the Protestant Reformation in Europe was fiercely dividing the Netherlands, and the Protestant government there gained power, the celebration of St. Nicholas Eve was banned.
Proof that St. Nicholas remained popular in America was found in early nineteenth century literature and folklore. Several New Yorkers worked hard to keep St. Nicholas in their Christmas celebrations. It was the New Yorkers who began the evolutionary process which transformed a third century bishop and saint into Santa as we see him today; everywhere a plump man in a red suit. Thanks to the New Yorkers! First among them was Washington Irving. In 1809, Irving published his first major work, A History of New York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty, by Diedrich Knickerbocker. It provided the first literary description of St. Nicholas appearing in America. His work contained numerous references to the Dutch patron saint.
Then, in 1822, it was Clement Clarke Moore's poem that really gave us the first definitive description of the Santa Claus as we know him today. The poem appeared anonymously in a local paper under the title, "A Visit from St. Nicholas." Moore had Americanized the Old World St. Nicholas by turning him into 'Jolly St. Nick,' a plump, happy-go-lucky elf with a sleigh full of toys and eight flying reindeer. The man with a red suit now attracts everyone. St. Nicolas, the third-century bishop as we know him today, has aged, gained weight, grown a few inches, and now has a beard. 
The first painting of St. Nicholas by an American artist was by Robert Walter Weir in 1837. It showed an elf-like fixture without a beard, dressed in high Dutch boots, a brown suit, and a red cape. He also wore a rosary. In 1848, Henry M. Onderdonk, a New York printer and bookseller, published Clement Moore's poem for the first time as an illustrated book for children. The small eight-page pamphlet had seven woodcuts depicting sleeping children, stockings hanging, and the Christmas elf driving his miniature team through the streets and over the rooftops of a quaint old-fashioned Dutch New York. In 1863, a German immigrant was working as an assistant illustrator at Frank Leslie's Magazine. The Gregory Company of New York approached him with an offer to do the illustrations for a book of Christmas poems, including Moore's. His work appeared under the title "Christmas Poems." The first edition of A Visit from St. Nicholas that showed him in a red cloth coat appeared around 1870. The artist is still unknown. Throughout the years, advertisers, book illustrators, and magazines have added to the mystique of Santa Claus.
So the famous Santa Claus now comes into our present history and every day of our lives during the Christmas Season. This is the way the Catholic Church grows in the different customs and cultures to proclaim to the world that Our God has kept His promise and a Savior is born to us.