Welcome to the History Tricks, where any resemblance to a boring old history lesson is purely coincidental.

Hello, it's Susan and Mary Christmas. Well, Christmas is the holiday that Beckett and I celebrate.

So today, Christmas Eve, we wanted to put the story of Mrs. Claus at the top of your podcast feed.

It's our tradition and, you know, we're all about traditions over here at the History Tricks.

There is a little ears warning just for spoilers, so you might want to keep that in mind before you play this.

But Mrs. Claus isn't, I won dimensional support player in Santa's life.

When the spotlight shines on her, it's really easy to see her depth and her wisdom, her wit, her beauty, her endurance, and the woman knows her way around a cookie.

So whatever you're doing now, pre-walking off your Christmas dinner, wrapping presents, or whatever you're doing.

From us to you, happy Christmas, happy new year. We made it through 2020, and we'll be back after the first of 2021, with more stories of some really incredible women.

Thank you for listening. Now, on with the show.

Hello, and welcome to the show. It's just Beckett today, with a tiny little minicast about one of the most undersigned characters that's around during this time of year.

Today, I'm going to give you the history of Mrs. Claus. Santa's, mostly patient, certainly tolerant wife, of somewhere in the neighborhood of 200 years or so.

A note to listeners with young children in the room, do preview the content, you know, just in case I say something of a revealing nature about shall we say the,

Charlie old elf himself. So on we go. Once upon a time, Santa Claus was a bachelor, not only a bachelor, but a bishop, Nicholas of Myra, in modern-day Turkey, who was born in the year 270.

He used to pay the dowries of poor girls on the sly and leave treats for the children of his town, theoretically anonymously.

But the word went out. If you leave your shoes out on the steps and someone happens to be passing by, well, you just never know.

The legend began with a real man, and was kept alive by the Dutch tradition of Santa Claus.

Santa Claus. That's what happens when you say the words, St. Nicholas, over time, with an accent and another language.

Sort of like when you play the telephone game, the words just change. Still, with the gifts and the shoes, but now only on one day, December 5th,

and St. Nicholas was brought to the new world. New Amsterdam, now of course New York, with the Dutch settlers.

St. Nicholas became the modern words Santa Claus, somewhere around the American Revolution.

Even at the time of, towards the night before Christmas, and all through the house, etc. Santa is still a single man.

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