The Autobiography of Santa Claus

by Jeff Guinn

  It turned out to be a very long war, with fighting continuing until 1781. Things were not really over until a peace treaty was signed by the Americans, English, French, and Spanish in 1783. The English armies had better weapons and usually beat the colonists when both armies stopped and faced each other, but the Americans were smart enough not to get into too many battles. Instead, George Washington, picked by the Continental Congress to lead the colonists, kept his soldiers moving continually and attacked the English when they weren’t expecting it.

  I always hated wars, and I didn’t care much for this one. It seemed to me that negotiation would have been better than shooting. But the Revolution was under way, and we in America were in the thick of it. When New York came under attack from the English army, we decided to move south to Philadelphia for a while.

  As soon as we arrived in Philadelphia, Leonardo and Willie Skokan told me they wanted to meet a man they’d heard about who was a great inventor.

  “This fellow once flew a kite in a thunderstorm to find out more about electricity,” Leonardo explained.

  “That sounds less like an inventor than an imbecile to me,” I replied. “What does a thunderstorm have to do with electricity?”

  Willie and Leonardo launched into a long, complicated explanation that just confused me more. People had known about electricity for centuries. It had been William Gilbert, the physician of Henry VIII’s daughter Queen Elizabeth, who gave electricity its name. Leonardo even suggested that someday normal people would be able to use electricity in their homes, but for purposes he couldn’t yet predict.

  Leonardo and Willie Skokan told me that this Benjamin Franklin of Philadelphia thought there might be electricity in lightning, so he went out in a thunderstorm with a metal key attached to the tail of a kite to see if lightning would strike the key and produce electricity. They also talked about Franklin’s printing company, and how every year he’d publish a book called Poor Richard’s Almanack, which was full of useful information about weather and other things.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Meeting Benjamin Franklin sounded like a more productive way to spend time than worrying about the war. After learning his address, we all went to his home and introduced ourselves. Franklin invited us in, offered us food, and almost immediately fell into deep conversation with Leonardo and Willie Skokan about, of all things, eyeglasses.

  “Some people need one type of lens for help with seeing things that are far away, and others need help to see objects that are near,” Franklin said. “But often when people get older, they need both kinds of eyeglasses and can only wear one at a time. But I have an idea ...” The three of them disappeared into some side room Franklin used as his laboratory, leaving Felix, Layla, and me behind.

  Within two weeks, they’d invented a type of eyeglasses they called “bifocals,” with each lens half convex and half concave. And within two months, Benjamin Franklin was a full member of our group.

  “I’ll have to postpone most of my involvement with you until this war is concluded,” he told us. “I’m spending much of my time in France, trying to gain our new nation more support there. Christmas is wonderful, but independence is necessary.”

  Ben—this is what he told us to call him—understood our dislike of war, and never asked us to help with the Revolution. That December we did help the colonists, however, quite by accident.

  General George Washington came to Philadelphia during the third week of that month in 1776 to report to the Continental Congress and to visit his good friend Ben, who was back home briefly from France and invited us one night to have dinner with his famous guest. George Washington was very tall. Later on I read somewhere that he had wooden teeth, but they certainly looked real to me. Ben naturally didn’t tell the general who we really were, simply saying that we were visiting from Europe and knew everything there was to know about Europeans and their customs at Christmas.

  “Is that so?” General Washington asked. “I wish I knew more about Europeans and their countries. The English have just brought some German soldiers to help against us. We call these troops ‘Hessians,’ and by reputation they’re very good fighters. They’ve set up a strong camp at Trenton, which isn’t too far from here. My soldiers don’t believe they can beat the English troops, let alone these Germans. Most of my army is in the countryside around New York, and I’m afraid the Hessians will attack us there.”

  “Oh, I don’t think they’ll do that, at least not until after Christmas,” Felix observed.

  “Why do you think so?” General Washington asked quickly, leaning forward and looking very interested.

  “Why, among all people on Earth, Germans may very well like to celebrate Christmas most!” Felix laughed. “I expect the forest around Trenton to be quickly stripped of its evergreen trees, for instance. Your Hessian foes will want to take those trees indoors and decorate them with ribbons and fruit and even candles. Then, on Christmas, I have no doubt they’ll gather around those trees all day to sing Christmas carols and drink hot rum.”

  “Oh, really?” General Washington asked again, now leaning so far forward it appeared he might fall out of the chair onto his face. “They’ll spend all Christmas night singing, and drinking, too?”

  I suddenly felt uncomfortable with the way the conversation was going. “Perhaps we should change the subject, Felix,” I said quickly, but my old friend was already saying more.

  “You can count on it, General,” Felix babbled cheerfully. “Go back to your troops in New York and tell them they can spend a peaceful Christmas, too.”

  One week later, on the night of December 25, the Hessian troops in Trenton gathered in their barracks. They stood around Christmas trees and sang carols and drank rum, just as Felix had predicted. And while they did, George Washington and his troops stealthily crossed the Delaware River and surrounded the Hessian camp. On the morning of December 26, while the Hessians were just waking up after their night of celebrating and drinking, Washington’s army attacked and overwhelmed them. It was the first major military victory for the colonists, and because of that battle the colonial troops began to believe they could defeat their powerful opponents after all.

  Nearly five years later at Yorktown, General Cornwallis of England surrendered to George Washington. Cornwallis said, both then and later, that Washington’s Christmas victory over the Hessians was the most important battle in the Revolutionary War, and the moment when the Colonists began to win.

  “Well, Felix, it seems you gave George Washington the best Christmas present possible,” Ben laughed soon after Cornwallis had surrendered and the war was over. “What a helpful fellow you are.”

  “Too helpful,” I grumbled. We were all crammed into the laboratory at Ben’s house. He, Leonardo, and Willie Skokan were hard at work trying to copy a new toy called “roller skates” that had been invented by a helper of Arthur’s in London. Apparently, this toy involved putting wheels on the soles of shoes.

  “Well,” Felix said, “at least the war is over. Now everyone in America can finally learn about Christmas.”

  We agreed with him that the story was wonderful, but explained what we really wanted him to write was only the part about how Dutch colonists had welcomed Saint Nicholas to help them celebrate Christmas.

  NINETEEN

  Diedrich Knickerbocker and “Silent Night”

  Newly independent America was, in most ways, an excit ing place to be. We certainly enjoyed being able to travel up and down its Atlantic coast without worrying about the British army. Sarah Kemble Knight and Ben Franklin were wonderful guides. Layla, Felix, Leonardo, Willie Skokan, and I learned a great deal from them.

  The problem we now faced was simple. Except for areas of New York and Pennsylvania where Dutch colonists had settled, Christmas celebrations in America were still inhibited by old-fashioned Puritan influence. In Boston, for instance, people still had to work on December 25, unless that date happened to fall on a Sunday. Each year after the Revolutionary War e
nded, we could and did choose areas where, on Christmas Eve, we’d quietly enter homes and leave gifts for children to find on Christmas morning. The children would wake up and be delighted with their presents, but they had no idea who had left them. Often their parents were more concerned that someone had come into their homes uninvited, and the next Christmas Eve might even sit up on guard to keep anyone from getting in again. And, as always, if parents didn’t want us to come, we felt we shouldn’t.

  “What we need is some good publicity,” Ben Franklin suggested one day in 1808. “You know—stories about Santa Claus and his helpers, and how their gifts can be such a pleasant part of celebrating Christmas.”

  “Do you mean stories in the newspapers?” Layla asked nervously. There were now quite a few newspapers in America, but none were especially known for telling the truth. “Do you mean we should go to reporters and tell them who we are? I don’t think that’s a good idea at all.”

  “She’s right, Ben,” Leonardo agreed. “If too many people knew our secrets, we’d lose the sense of wonder and magic that makes Santa Claus so special.”

  It took Sarah, herself an author, to come up with the best solution. “There are several writers in America whose articles and stories are especially well written,” she said. “Perhaps we could choose just one writer, someone who could capture Santa’s legend on the printed page so that it would inspire everyone’s imagination. This way we’d only be sharing our secrets with one person, but that writer could tell our story to parents and children all over America!”

  We all thought Sarah’s idea was wonderful, and began talking about various American authors whose works we had read and enjoyed. It was Ben, who perhaps read the most of any of us, who insisted he had just the right author in mind.

  “There’s a fellow in New York named Washington Irving,” Ben suggested. “He’s an odd sort, by all accounts, someone who hated school, but then studied law for six whole years because he found the subject interesting. Irving has written several excellent short stories in newspapers about New York and the colonists who came to live there. Let’s go meet him and see if he might be interested in helping us.”

  We found Washington Irving to be a fascinating man. He was short, slender, and balding prematurely at age twenty-six. To arrange our first meeting, we left a note for Irving at his home saying two men who knew all about the early Dutch colonies in Fort Orange and New Amsterdam wanted to talk with him. And this, of course, was true—although it had been almost two hundred years since Felix and I had first lived in them. Still, we both remembered those villages well.

  Irving invited us for tea, and didn’t seem surprised when seven strangers showed up instead of the two he was expecting. Ben made a good first impression by praising some of Irving’s stories that he’d read.

  “Right now, most of my new stories are appearing in a newspaper called Salmagundi,” Irving explained. “I’m not paid very much for writing them. I make most of my money working as a lawyer. I’d rather write. It’s my hope one day to spend all my time writing books.”

  “Why not write a book about the early Dutch colonists?” Ben suggested cheerfully. “I imagine lots of Americans would want to buy such a book to learn more about their customs.”

  “And their Christmas traditions,” Felix added helpfully.

  “Do you mean that Saint Nicholas nonsense?” Irving laughed. “I don’t think there’s anyone left alive who’s really certain where that tall tale came from.”

  “Think again,” I replied, and for the next few hours Irving’s eyes grew ever wider as he heard the true story of Santa Claus all the way back to when plain old Nicholas first became bishop of Myra. It was especially hard for Irving to believe he was sitting in the same room with Leonardo da Vinci and Benjamin Franklin, but when he was finally convinced he began to chatter frantically.

  “I must write this story,” he chattered. “I must, I must. What a wonderful tale, Saint Nicholas living forever and coming to America!”

  We agreed with him that the story was wonderful, but explained what we really wanted him to write was only the part about how Dutch colonists had welcomed Saint Nicholas to help them celebrate Christmas.

  “Why not do what Ben suggested and write a book all about the Dutch colonists,” I said. “Let Saint Nicholas be a part of the book. Use that name instead of Santa Claus, the way the Dutch did. This way, everyone who reads it can ease into the whole idea of Santa Claus.”

  Irving agreed, and for the next six months we stayed with him at his house while he wrote steadily. Irving worried he’d have to work as a lawyer during the day and only write at night, but we arranged for Francis to send us money from Europe, which made up for the salary Irving lost because he wasn’t practicing law.

  Washington Irving was a great writer, and eventually he would achieve his dream of writing books that were both famous and best-sellers. The book he wrote with us, which was called Diedrich Knickerbocker’s ‘A History of New York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty,’ sold quite well by the standards of that time—several thousand copies. You must remember that many Americans still couldn’t read in the early 1800s. Irving wouldn’t let us read the book while he was writing it. He’d sit in his study, scratching words on paper with his goose-quill pen, and we’d amuse ourselves playing croquet in his yard. Sometimes he’d call us in to give him extra information on one subject or another. Eventually, Irving pronounced the book completed, and he took his hundreds of pages to a printer. Only after the book was bound between covers and displayed for sale in shops would Irving let us read it.

  Mostly, we were pleased. Irving wrote of Christmastime in the old Dutch colonies and how “the good Saint Nicholas came riding,” with the purpose of bringing “his yearly presents to children.” This was good. What wasn’t as pleasant was Irving’s made-up description of how Saint Nicholas did this by “riding over the tops of trees” in a wagon.

  “I can’t fly,” I spluttered to Irving the first time I read that description. “Why did you say that I could?”

  “It seemed to make the story better,” Irving replied. “You told me you wanted readers to be thrilled by your Christmas magic.”

  “Well, my magic doesn’t include flying,” I grumbled. “I hope everyone who reads your book skips over that part and concentrates on my gift-giving instead.”

  But when Diedrich Knickerbocker was published in 1809, at first it didn’t seem as though I’d have much to worry about. As I said, a few thousand copies were sold, and we were able to go into that many more homes on Christmas Eve and leave presents for American children to find on Christmas morning. It was a good start. Then someone who read it was inspired to write a children’s book entitled A New Year’s Present to the Little Ones from Five to Twelve, and in this book I was supposed to ride in a sleigh pulled by a reindeer.

  We thanked Irving for his trouble and wished him future success. Though we invited him, he didn’t want to leave his home and travel with us. “Writing is my life’s purpose, the same way giving gifts to children is yours,” Irving explained.

  “We’ll see you again, I know,” Ben told him as we departed. “Meanwhile, happy times are coming for you. With your talent, you’re certain to be a world-famous author, and soon.”

  “I wish you could stay longer,” Irving said. “Maybe I could write another book about Saint Nicholas that might sell even better, if you’d stay and give me more good ideas.”

  “Don’t feel badly,” Layla suggested. “I have a feeling that Diedrich Knickerbocker is going to give us exactly the help we need, although it might take longer than we expected. Write other books. We all agree with Ben that when we see you again, you’ll be famous.”

  We were sorry to say good-bye to Washington Irving, but excited to be on our way because, after so many years, we had decided to take a ship back to Europe. We wouldn’t stay there forever—it was understood among us that America would probably be our permanent home—but we wanted
to see Arthur and Francis and Attila and Dorothea again. Sarah, Felix, and Ben Franklin stayed behind to open up a toy factory in Philadelphia and keep building the American Christmas tradition until the rest of us returned.

  In the spring of 1810 we sailed back to London. Arthur met us at the dock. Francis was with him, and so were Attila and Dorothea, who’d come all the way from Nuremberg to greet us. That night we had a wonderful reunion dinner at Arthur’s home, and heard about the latest news in Britain.

  “You might have left America just in time,” Arthur suggested. “Everyone here in England believes we’ll soon be at war with the colonists again.”

  “They’re not ‘colonists’ anymore, Arthur,” Layla said gently. “They want to be called Americans now.”

  “Whatever they call themselves, I think they were lucky to defeat the British,” Arthur snorted. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think that General Washington had some sort of special help. None of you would know anything about that, would you?” We all shook our heads and did our very best to look innocent.

  But Arthur was right about another war between America and Britain. The two countries got in a fierce argument over shipping rights—whose ships could go where, carrying what—and finally war was declared in 1812. Again, it was fought in America, and mostly the British got the best of it. In May 1814, their army actually burned some of Washington; President James Madison had to run away as part of the White House went up in flames. But four months later an American named Thomas Macdonough won a terrible naval battle on Lake Champlain in New York State, and soon afterward leaders from both sides met in Belgium and signed a peace treaty. They did this on Christmas Eve, saying it was appropriate to stop fighting on Christ’s birthday. There was one more battle in this war to be fought, though. News of the peace treaty didn’t reach New Orleans before January 8, 1815. Thinking America was still at war, General Andrew Jackson routed his British foes. Thank goodness, this was the last battle ever between America and Britain.