When I was a child, one of our local Pittsburgh-based television stations had an after-school television program called “Paul Shannon’s Adventure Time.” Shannon was the show’s host, and he would air reruns of The Three Stooges, Rocky and Bullwinkle, and various cartoons. One of the recurring live characters on his show was named “Nosmo King.” It wasn’t until some years later that I realized that this character’s name was actually derived from “No Smoking” (though I doubt whether it was intended to be a subliminal message aimed at children).

Now, consider Santa Claus, and it’s the same thing as with Nosmo: Santa’s name came down as a form of Saint Nicholas. And this connection with Santa and with Christmas, and seasonal songs like “Jolly Old Saint Nicholas” have kept this saint (whose life spanned the 3rd and 4th centuries) in Christianity’s collective consciousness for centuries. Whether the original had a long white beard, was pleasingly plump, or had reindeer is doubtful, and he lived quite far from the North Pole.

What is known (or at least transmitted over time) about the original Nicholas is that he lived in an area of present-day Turkey (then known as Asia Minor). He has come to be associated with children, but… what a downer! Here are Butler’s words about the righteous example of Nicholas:

St. Nicholas is esteemed a patron of children, because he was from his infancy* a model of innocence and virtue, and to form (i.e., to shape) that tender age to sincere piety was always his first care and delight. To impress on the minds of children perfect sentiments of devotion, religion and all virtues, with an earnestness in all duties, is a task often as delicate as it is important. Instructions must be made sensible, and adapted by similes, parables, and examples, to the weakness of their capacities. Above all, they are to be enforced by the conduct of those with whom children converse.

Children learning from infancy to be earnestly devout doesn’t sound very jolly at all! Yet, interestingly, these sentiments are “laughingly” referenced in the Christmas song, “Santa Claus is Coming to Town”–teaching children not to shout, not to cry, and not even to pout (in all transparency, I’m a practitioner of pouting, even now)–and, of course children must be nice and not naughty! Furthermore, that song teaches that Santa will be checking his list twice, so no infractions will escape notice.

Now perhaps you might have noticed the asterisk that I myself inserted in Butler’s description, above, about Nicholas’s patronage of children. That’s because I want to relate an additional, particular reference that Butler makes as to how Nicholas, from his infancy, was such a true model of virtue:

We are told that from his infancy he observed the fasts of Wednesdays and Fridays, refusing to suck the breasts on those days, which were consecrated to fasting by the law of the Church . . .

While it is certainly amazing that, with cattle lowing, no crying did the little Lord Jesus make (see the hymn, “Away in a Manger”), it is just about as remarkable to have a babe turn from his mother’s breast in order to fast, just to be in accord with canonical law!

Somehow, I’d rather have children loved by the likes of Mr. Rogers–discovering the fascinations the world has to offer, exercising their imaginations, and becoming good neighbors–than learn from the likes of Nicholas how to fast and live in “sincere piety.”