Stealing Saint Nick

Nicholas of Myra lived in a small Mediterranean town in the third century AD, born into a fringe Jewish sect, and nothing about his start suggested he would end up one of the most recognizable figures on earth. Over the following centuries he became a saint of enormous standing in Christianity, then a commercial symbol, and eventually the jolly gift-giver most people now picture at Christmas. M. T. Anderson follows that whole journey in Stealing Saint Nick.

The road there was not a smooth one. Nicholas lived through the Great Persecution, and the story carries on past the fall of the Roman Empire to the strange afterlife of his remains, whose supposedly oozing bones were stolen not once but twice. Anderson tracks how the man called the patron saint of consumption passed from local holy figure to a global emblem of capitalism, one that has ended up as an unintended rival to Jesus himself.

The book grew out of the research Anderson did for Nicked, his adult debut. Anderson, a National Book Award, Printz and Newbery Honor winner, argues that the past can only be understood by weighing the documented facts alongside the legends people chose to tell and retell. Both shape what we think we know, and the shared stories we believe in help steer the course of human affairs.

The result is scholarly but easy to read, aimed at anyone curious about how a modest figure of late antiquity became so tangled up with faith, government and commerce, whatever they make of Santa Claus today.