St. Nick, Elves and Flying Reindeer... hmmm

As the Holidays approach giving us visions of sugurplums, many of us are intrigued, as we were as children, about Santa Claus and his yearly flight.

Not being a historian but knowing a tiny bit about the ol' fellow I have decided to look up some sites that might, for people like myself, help us bridge the gap between what we read now, what it was originally based on and how St. Nick and his story have evolved through the years.

My main curiosity is this, 1) "HOW did Santa Clause come to be synonymous with elves and flying reindeer and why do some consider HIM to be an elf"? I don't know about you but I don't think of snow when I think of elves or anything Fey-like.

"Santa Elf" http://www.jps.net/elve/santaelf.html I was hoping this page, since it's the first in hundreds to even touch upon elves and Santa, would be a serious investigation but I'm not quite sure what to make of it! LOL I would guess that it's someone's tribute to Santa and elves, with some pics of the webmasters and kiddos, but it does hit on the subject so...

As far as elf-ness goes I would guess that, since Santa is supposed to be jolly and is possibly a derivative of a Pagan deity, he must be considered magickal more than religious and thus became an elf. If you know please fill me in I can't find anything more than this one page!

2)What about all of Santa's tricks like going down chimneys and seeing us when we're sleeping, knowing when we're awake? HOW's he do that?! Fairie dust for flight...psychic insight on his children? And one last question...

3)Religious question. Why is it that Santa has become one of the focuses of Christmas, Yule, Channukah etc.? Is it that there are so many different holidays this time of year that he is a "P.C." figure of good deeds or was his yearly jaunt started this time of year originally?

I found that most of the sites I came across, after searching all night, had historical info. but not much else. I do like that many of them show correlations from country to country though.

"Santa, Last of the Wild Men" http://www.grapevine.net/~kic/ This site doesn't answer quite so much as intrigue but it does have a few interesting tidbits. It's an ad for a book, by the same name, written by Phyllis Siefker. It looks quite interesting. I wondered if Santa tied in with paganism in a specific way and, according to this lady, he does! This site covers a few people that Santa embodies and various characters that have embodied him through the years.

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