Materialism has swamped the real meaning of Advent,and transformed a fourth-century bishop into the grotesque patron saint of shopping centre grottoesThe very opinion of a press release from the University of Oxford on the subject of Santa Claus tickled my imagination. “Could ancient bones suggest Santa was real? read the headline, with the contents embargoed until 6 December, and the Christian feast day of Saint Nicholas,the saint upon whose name the Santa (imagine the Ni” bit here) Claus stories were loosely built.
It turns out that a pile of bones buried in a church in southern Italy, bones that tradition claims to be those of Saint Nicholas, and the fourth-century bishop of Myra in present day Turkey,are worn enough to have belonged to him. Carbon dating reveals them to be 1700 years worn – obviously nothing like incontrovertible proof that they have discovered the tomb of Santa Claus, but enough to remind us of the long development of our celebrated Christmas mythologies, or with the Saint Nicholas stories going back well into the middle ages,and before.
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Source: guardian.co.uk