In a very important sense all fiction takes place in an alternate reality. In fact a large portion of Historical non-fiction does as well. Because in both of these cases you're presenting something that is both familiar - it's generally written in your language, or translated, it involves people, or something that acts like people, and it tends to be something you can relate to in some way - and something that is not 100% real. In the case of fiction this is intentional, you're telling a story which didn't actually happen. Non fiction is just because it's impossible to get all the details just right, so you kinda fib things and fudge them to make the detail fit.
But we're just interested in fiction today. My story needs a background.
So we're starting with Santa Claus. And the Santa story is one that is full of little details that can be bent and inferred, and altered just a little to suit my needs. He comes from a wide variety of backgrounds and cultures, which have formed a kind of amalgamation to become this distilled thing, the essence of a symbol of the "Spirit of Christmas." (BTW I have a whole thing about religion vs atheism within fiction, but I'll be saving that for another day.)
Anyway my favorite of the old legends that would one day become the Jolly Fat Man is Sinterklaas who was the traditional figure for a very large portion of what is today known as "The Low Countries" such as the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and so on. He was thought to be a Holy Man, and was simply called De Sint, and he had dark skinned "Zwarte Piet" or Black Pete helpers who listen at chimneys and tell Sinterklaas whether the children have been naughty or nice, and help him to distribute the treats to children (as well as causing mass drunkenness among the adults, but that's something altogether different.) But of course this was all created from Saint Nicholas, who actually died on Dec 6th, 343, at the ripe old age (especially at that time) of 73, who had a lot of good things to recommend him, primary of which was his reputation for clandestine philanthropy. One wonders what he would think of the whole idea of Santa Claus and the legacy he left behind just for putting coins in peoples shoes when they left them out.
But let's get back to Sinterklaas. While Saint Nicholas was almost certainly a real historical figure, Sinterklaas was the true origin of our modern tradition, as he was also an amalgamation of several different traditions fused into one, as many things back in that day were. And it's not hard to imagine that it all started with one sailor who brought the Saint Nick story to the Netherlands, as he was also the patron saint of sailors. He told this story to his cousin, a chocolatier and baker, who has been looking for a "mascot" to help him sell chocolate. His business had been failing, mostly due to the fact that nobody seemed to know about it. He - let's call him Niclause, just be cause I love symmetry - Niclause decides he's going to borrow the idea of Saint Nick, and he hires another one of his cousins, a rotund man known for his good nature, and his luxurious white beard named Klaus to help him out, and here's where history meets serendipity, and amazing things are born.
Niclause decides that in honor of Saint Nicholas he will have Klaus go out into the city with a big selection of his chocolates to sell dressed up in a costume of a Bishop or Cardinal, again in honor of the day's namesake. Klaus goes out with precisely that intention, until he sees a poor urchin in the street, homeless and helpless, and he thinks "Hey, Saint Nick is the patron saint of children, I should help this child." No sooner does he give away a single piece of chocolate than children are suddenly swarming all around him demanding free chocolate. Then suddenly it's not just children, but adults, and before long amidst wild praise and cheers to "Saint Klaus," Klaus finds that his supply of chocolate is completely gone, and he hasn't made any money. He heads dejectedly back to his cousin to give him the bad news.
Niclause is furious at the lost money, and is into a full blown furious storm of anger and rage at his cousin, demanding that he pay back every cent of the money he has now lost in chocolate. He's on the verge of getting into a fourth tirade of epic proportions, and is about to start throwing things when there comes an amazing sound from outside. People are crowding the streets outside his shop cheering and calling for "Saint Klaus," as they start pouring into the shop, jingling their money purses and placing so many orders that Niclause would never be able to keep up on his own, He nudges Klaus and whispers to him to "put the hat back on." Klaus became his partner from that day forward, and they expanded the shop and hired many people to help with the running, and the cooking. They begin the annual festival of SinterKlaas (Saint Klaus) and for nearly the whole of December they give away chocolate, when they can. Because Niclause had started making these small coin shaped chocolates with the intention of giving those away to children, but they're so popular that people begin buying them for themselves, so they can give them away!
And so each year the festival grew, and spread, and people began to give other gifts to one another, toys and clothes and tools, and art, and many many things, and Klaus was asked to be in many cities, but could not go to all of them, so he began to send others dressed up in wigs and beards and Cardinal outfits, and they went further and further each year, until people began to notice that he was in several places at once, and believed he must have some kind of magic to be able to get around so quickly, to which he would cleverly quip, "Of course! I have a magic horse that takes me wherever I wish to go!"
And the festival continued to gain popularity out of the control of the little family, though Niclause and Klaus continued to play a major role for the rest of their lives. Eventually their sons took up the roles, then their sons, then theirs.
And this continued on for many years, until someone shot the Archduke Franz Ferdinand. By then the family was enormous, and spread out over Europe, all keeping in contact, and all still doing their part for the family business, which by this time was something on the order of a secret society, giving generously during Christmastime, and using the popularity of Santa to drive sales for their various businesses. But when the biggest war in history (up to that point) began to threaten, they decided to pull up stakes and move to the Americas, some settling in Canada, some in the United States. Isadora Klaussen the matriarch of the family at the time settled in what would eventually become South Bend Indiana. Bereft of much of what they would need to build up their family business again, it looked as though the family business would fail, and many family members started taking work outside the business. Fearing for the future of the company, Isadora made an incredible decision: The company would get out of the "Christmas" business, as they had thought of it for so many years, and get into the "Santa Claus" business.
Up till that time Santa had been rather warped over the years, and the most recent depiction had shown Santa as a tiny elf. But Isadora had been holding on to some old paintings of "Saint Klaus" and showed them to an advertising agency in early 1930. After nearly a year of working with the images to make them more secular, an artist named Fred Mizen painted his famous picture of Santa drinking a bottle of Coke. The family began to work with Coca Cola a lot over the years, but ultimately retained the rights to the "Santa Claus" image, but Isadora didn't feel quite right about using her generous ancestor to make money, and applied to the government to form an organization who would get tax breaks for doing charitable acts, as long as they used their surplus income for those charitable acts, or for improving the business, becoming among the first corporate non-profit organizations in the US, and to this day, one of the very few who are able to support and expand the business and operations from their own revenue stream. (wow, that's a long run on sentence.)
And that brings us up to today, where the organization thrives in secret, and perpetuates the myth that it was responsible for creating so many centuries ago, in a little chocolate shop in the Netherlands.
As always comments and suggestions are welcome. I hope you like what you're reading so far, let me know in the comments here, or on Facebook or G+. Thanks for reading!
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