Show ST NICHOLAS in these days kriss kringle is looked upon as nc ar alternative name for santa claus but in f fact act lie he is etymologically clymo logically r and historically a totally y different crant being though the two personages have been welded into one in the popular imagination A very emall email knowledge of gr aerman erman reveals the fact that kriss kringle is simply a corruption of the word Christ kindlein or christ child i hose connection with the Christ christmas runs festival is too obvious to need explanation rut but what seems inexplicable is how the child of the past the holy one whose nativity is ii the oti subject beet of commemoration in that feast which we call christmas should have evolved into the white haired weilu bearded merry hearted and kindly old pagan 0 whom we call indifferently kriss kringle or santa claus yet at the very moment when U 0 a have corne come face to face with this apparently insoluble paradox we have reached the solution which seemed impossible when we strove to understand the much less startling lin transformation of st nicholas into int 0 santa claus we reme remember ruber that the christmas festival of today is a gradual evolution from times that long antedated the christian period that tha t though it celebrates the mightiest fact in the history of christendom it was overlaid upon heathen festivals and many of its attendant observances are arc mere adaptations of pagan to lo christian ceremonial this was no lie mere accident it was a necessary measure at a wile time when the new reli religion 0 ion was forced on a deeply population in order to reconcile heathen converts to the new faith and to make the wrenching of the old ties as painless as possible these relics or of paganism were preserved under modified fied externals exactly as the bantique lan antique tique columns were transferred i from ancient temples to adorn the christian basilicas basili cas in course of time as the idea of j mundane merriment rather than reli religious r ious sanctification at the iho period 1 of became the predominant one st nicholas or santa C claus 1 aus lost his asceticism became ruddier jollier more rubicund in aspect while the christ child faded more and more into the background until at last the very name of the latter under the slight 13 1 dif different Terent form of kriss kringle was trans transferred erred to liis his successor selected ly A A L N Z P 7 sirs mrs yes maam I 1 doue done raise dig dia yero chile on do r bottle t T freddy huh I 1 I 1 guess i it t must havo have been an ink bottle isi j life |