Why do we give gifts at Christmas, from Saturnalia to Saint Nicholas

December in Rome, with gifts and roles reversed

December gift-giving was already a custom in ancient Rome. The World History Encyclopedia sets the Saturnalia between 17 and 23 December, around the winter solstice, and describes a holiday in which people exchanged presents. While it lasted the household ran backwards: slaves were allowed to do as they liked, and masters, wearing the pilleus of a freed slave, brought them their food or at least ate with them. The holiday closed with the market of the sigillaria, where candles, figs in jelly and, most of all, sigilla, small clay figurines, changed hands, and people with dependents gave them some coins so they could shop at those cheap stalls. The Romans had a word for a gift of good luck, strena, probably of Sabine origin, and according to Wikipedia the presents exchanged at the Saturnalia were of many kinds, coins included.

The World History Encyclopedia takes the shared features, along with a date that moved later into December over time, as a sign of a strong influence on the Christian Christmas. Wikipedia adds that the festival honoured Saturn and fell just before the Natalis Solis Invicti. For the 25 December date there is the history of Christmas and its traditions; for the society that worshipped Saturn, the Recap on the Roman Empire.

From the Magi to Saint Nicholas

In chapter 2 of the Gospel of Matthew the Magi come to Jesus and present him with gold, frankincense and myrrh.

Another story of gifts comes from fourth-century Asia Minor, where, according to Franciscan Media, Saint Nicholas lived in the city of Myra, in present-day Turkey. The legend tells of three sisters too poor to marry: three times Nicholas, unseen, threw a small bag of gold into their house, and it dropped into the stockings hung by the fire. Franciscan Media traces a line from this legend to the modern Santa Claus: the custom of giving without signing your name grew with the saint’s reputation, people moving to new lands took the figure of the gift-giving saint along, and Nicholas ended up as the Santa we know.

Practical example: a present that arrives “from Santa”, without the name of whoever bought it, is an anonymous gift of the kind the legend attributes to Nicholas.

Who brings the gifts, and on which day

In the Netherlands the present comes from Sinterklaas. The St. Nicholas Center says that, until the 1940s, Dutch children woke on 6 December to find it in their shoes; the giving later shifted to the evening of the 5th, pakjesavond, “packages evening”, when people swap gifts and surprises.

On 6 January, in Spain and Italy, other figures bring the gifts. In Spain, National Geographic writes, children’s shoes stay outside overnight stuffed with straw, and those who have been good find presents from the Three Kings in them; in Italy they are brought by La Befana, a kindly old witch. The feast’s Greek name, Epiphany, means “manifestation”, and the magazine dates its observance to 361 AD, perhaps with pagan roots that go back further. The history of Halloween looks at another place where pre-Christian rites and Christian feasts overlap.

When Christmas became a business

In 1843 Henry Cole had an idea: a greeting card drawn by his friend the painter John Callcott Horsley, printed in a thousand copies, each with space for a message written by hand. It was the first Christmas card. The Victoria and Albert Museum says it was also put on sale, for a shilling, a steep price then, and that the venture was judged a flop.

Meanwhile, according to the museum, publishing was pushing Christmas towards commerce: cheaper gift-books and keepsakes were pitched at a growing middle class, and by the 1870s the commercial Christmas had become the norm.

Santa Claus in Coca-Cola’s advertising

Coca-Cola had been selling itself at Christmas since the 1920s, in magazine ads such as those in The Saturday Evening Post. In 1931, the company says, a Michigan illustrator named Haddon Sundblom was given the job of drawing Santa Claus in person, and he looked for his model in an 1823 poem by Clement Clark Moore, “A Visit From St. Nicholas”, also known as “Twas the Night Before Christmas”.

Santa stayed in the company’s advertising until 1964.