Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, December 18, 1994 TAG: 9412200002
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOHN BARBOUR ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Santa Claus, a k a St. Nicholas, Pere Noel, Father Christmas, Bafana as he is known in Italy, has written his autobiography at long last, aided and abetted by a Texas journalist.
Jeff Guinn of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, editor of ``The Autobiography of Santa Claus: It's Better to Give,'' set up an interview with the jolly old man for The Associated Press.
Santa speaks:
``I was born in the year 280 in a country called Lycia, which has become part of Turkey. So I imagine that makes me 1,714 years old this Christmas. But I still feel fine, very spry. I stopped aging apparently when I was 63 years old.
``One of the most important things for people to realize is the difference between magic and illusion. Illusion is something that can finally be explained. And in the book I try to explain some of the illusion of my legend, going down chimneys, etc. Magic is something that simply is. I've never understood why I stopped aging. Maybe if I live another few hundred years, I might.''
Santa's book says he was born to affluent but aging parents in the town of Patara. They died within months of each other when he was 9. He learned several languages and he was something of a scholar in the polyglot Middle East. Named Nicholas (which means ``Victorious''), he was put in the care of priests, and stayed at the local inn, financed with the considerable purse left by his parents.
Still he had a gnawing guilt because he had so much while all around him had so little. An old priest named Philip told him that the richest men in heaven would be those who gave the most on Earth.
The first Christmas present he gave was money enough for dowry for three unmarried daughters of an impoverished man in Patara. At first mistaken for a thief, he left 12 silver coins in their stockings, which enabled them to marry and live happy lives.
As time went on, he realized that his philanthropy would require help. His first recruit was a man named Felix.
``Felix guesses that his ancestors might have been Jewish and might have been brought to Rome after the sacking of the temple in Jerusalem in the year 87.''
Not long after, Santa met and married Layla, who has been instrumental in his life and his philanthropy. It was she, for instance, who recommended that they stop doling out food and clothing and begin delivering toys.
Santa remembers, ``After giving gifts and food to needy children for several hundred years, we began to feel very frustrated because no matter how many children we were able to help, there were always far more in need and even after we fed children the equivalent of a meal, they would be hungry again the next day.
``Layla suggested that the children needed to be reminded that there was joy and goodness in the world, in life. And if we could give them toys instead, they would have something lasting, a memento that there is someone who cares for them, who loves them.''
Along the way, he picked other helpers, St. Francis of Assisi, a war chief from England named Arthur whom fable knows as King Arthur, Ben Franklin, Attila the Hun. Attila, who had tired of war, was and is a great help as Santa skirts battlefields with his small but growing band.
There are now 185 in his ageless crew.
``One of the benefits for my helpers is that they, too, stop aging,'' Santa says. ``Felix, who is my oldest companion, is almost 1,600 years old, as is Layla. Layla still looks as young as she did when I met her. She asks often and I reassure her.''
Why did he wait so long to tell his story?
``Layla has been after me to do it ever since Clement Moore [now one of Santa's group at the North Pole] wrote, `'Twas The Night Before Christmas,' because in it he referred to me as an elf, and I'm a full-sized man.
``When you read about when the first Christmas carol was written or the first Christmas tree decorated, this is the real history. Whether you're 6 years old or you're reading it to your grandchildren you'll get a better sense of how we came to the modern-day Christmas, how it's been an evolution of so many things.''
Santa now operates a global enterprise.
The erstwhile King Arthur runs the toy enterprises in Europe, but with operations expanding into eastern Europe he has his hands full.
``Attila has become quite interested in video games. One of the ways we pay for operations is to design video games software for some of the big manufacturers.''
Also on the staff are Santa's personal navigator, Amelia Earhart, and Bill Pickett, the first great black rodeo cowboy, and Willie Skokan, the great Czechoslovakian artisan.
``We hope that children will learn from this book that gender and ethnicity don't have a thing to do with what people can accomplish,'' Santa says.
When Clement Moore wrote his poem, ``it caused an awful stir for all of us. It was necessary for Leonardo to invent a sled that could fly.'' Ben Franklin and Willie Skokan had to train eight reindeer to run fast enough to become airborne. Then Santa had to overcome his fear of heights.
For the few skeptics left in the world, Santa would refer them to the letter newsman Francis Church wrote to 8-year-old Virginia O'Hanlon in the New York Sun.
``Mr. Church's reply was so perfect I found myself wondering if Felix and Ben Franklin might have written it for him.''
Church assured Virginia there is a Santa Claus. ``Thank God, he lives and lives forever. A thousand years from now Virginia, nay 10 times 10 thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.''
by CNB