{"id":6807,"date":"2015-12-14T06:00:45","date_gmt":"2015-12-14T06:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/?p=6807"},"modified":"2017-11-22T15:47:44","modified_gmt":"2017-11-22T15:47:44","slug":"the-difference-between-nikolaus-santa-claus-and-the-christkind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/the-difference-between-nikolaus-santa-claus-and-the-christkind\/","title":{"rendered":"The Difference between Nikolaus, Santa Claus and the Christkind"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sometimes it can get a bit confusing: St Nicholas comes on the night of 5th<\/sup> of December, Santa Claus comes on the night of the 24th<\/sup>, and the Christkind arrives in the evening of the 24th<\/sup>! But who are they all and what is the unterschied\u00a0<\/strong>(difference) between them?<\/p>\n

Saint Nicholas<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

St Nicholas comes from Greece (now part of Turkey) and lived in the third century. He donated Geschenke<\/strong> (presents) and food to the poor by throwing them through the window. He died on the 6th<\/sup> of December which is why the night of the 5th<\/sup> is a remembrance day for him. I wrote a post all about him last year, if you want to know more then you can find it here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"4160621486_b2a4a2ca96_z\"<\/a>

St Nicholas with the Krampus. Photo by labormikro on Flickr under CC BY-SA 2.0<\/p><\/div>\n

Santa Claus –\u00a0der Weihnachtsmann<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

His name originates from the Dutch word Sinterklaas<\/em> and he is actually St Nicholas! During the Protestant reformation the Church banned St Nicholas\u2019 day, as they didn\u2019t want a catholic saint to be remembered. The pilgrims who still wanted to keep the tradition changed the day to the 25th<\/sup> so they could remember St Nicholas as well as the birth of Jesus.<\/p>\n

St Nicholas got his new image from various Gedichte\u00a0<\/strong>(poems) and drawings. One of the most famous poems is \u201cA visit from St. Nicholas\u201d by Clement Clarke Moore (also known as \u201cThe Night Before Christmas\u201d). Here he describes St Nicholas as how we know him:<\/p>\n

\u201cHis eyes\u2014how they twinkled! his dimples, how merry!<\/p>\n

His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!<\/p>\n

His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,<\/p>\n

And the beard on his chin was as white as the snow;\u201d<\/p>\n

Das Christkind<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

The Christkind came from Martin Luther during the Protestant Reformation. The Christkind was created as the new gift bringer to eliminate St Nicholas. The christkind is a child like figure with blonde hair, meant to resemble Jesus as a child. My sister wrote a detailed post on the Christkind last year which you can find here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I hope this post has cleared up any confusion! In short, St Nicholas was turned into Santa Claus, and the Christkind became the new gift giver to try and stop people remembering St Nicholas. Despite all that happened over the centuries each figure is still remembered every year.<\/p>\n

Ich w\u00fcnsche Euch allen frohe Weihnachten!<\/strong><\/p>\n

I wish you all a merry Christmas!<\/p>\n

Larissa<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

Sometimes it can get a bit confusing: St Nicholas comes on the night of 5th of December, Santa Claus comes on the night of the 24th, and the Christkind arrives in the evening of the 24th! But who are they all and what is the unterschied\u00a0(difference) between them? Saint Nicholas St Nicholas comes from Greece…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":127,"featured_media":6809,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[3,913],"tags":[358456,43,9448,95232,935,8426,374384,376083,376082],"class_list":["post-6807","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-traditions","tag-christkind","tag-christmas","tag-differences","tag-frohliche-weihnachten","tag-german","tag-germany","tag-nikolaus","tag-santaclaus","tag-weihnachten"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6807","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/127"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6807"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6807\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9312,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6807\/revisions\/9312"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}