You have to eat, so you may as well do it with Santa

You can sit on his knee, have your picture taken and deliver your wish list at any large mall. You can leave cookies and milk out Christmas Eve and pick up the dirty dishes first thing Christmas morning.

But can you sit down and break bread with that right jolly old elf, St. Nicholas?

Yes. Well, so long as by breaking bread you mean sharing pancakes and eggs.

On Dec. 4 you and your child can have breakfast with Santa Claus at the Spokane Valley Elks Lodge, 2605 N. Robie Road, from 9 until 11 a.m.

Santa has come a long way since he was first introduced in this country by settlers in New York in the 17th century.

Based on the legend of Sinter Klaas, he was known as St. A Claus by 1773, and his current image was begun by author Washington Irving in the early 1800s, who dubbed him St. Nicholas in his “History of New York.”

The St. Nick we know today was forged by Clement Clark Moore in his poem “A Visit From Saint Nicholas,” known to most of us by its famous first line: ” ‘Twas the night before Christmas.” That work drew heavily on Irving’s original descriptions.

To Moore, St. Nick was an elf who could lift himself up a chimney simply by placing his finger aside his nose and who rode through the skies on a sleigh pulled by magic reindeer named Dasher, Prancer, Dancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner and Blitzen.

Montgomery Ward invented the ninth reindeer, Rudolph, in its advertising in 1939.

The Santa we see today was refined by illustrator Thomas Nast, who featured Santa Claus in issues of Harper’s magazine in the 1860s until the 1880s. Nast is responsible for giving him a workshop at the North Pole and a list of all the good and bad children in the world.

Oddly enough, Coca Cola is responsible for elevating Santa from elf to human through a series of Christmas advertisements beginning in 1931.

Santa’s penchant for delivering packages to children comes from fourth century Bishop Nicholas of Smyrna, a region now located in Turkey. Wealthy, generous and fond of children, the bishop was known to throw gifts to them through their windows.