英語閱讀：聖誕老人究竟從哪來

　　聖誕老人究竟從哪來?

　　Where does Santa Claus come from?

　　2010年，聖誕老人(Santa Claus)慶祝了他的一千七百三十歲生日!其原型尼古拉斯(Nicholas)在公元前280年出生於利西亞小國，這個國家現已併入土耳其。

　　The origins of our Christmas traditions are the most fascinating of any holiday. All our favorite activities can be traced back to specific points in history, and knowing how these things came about just makes celebrating Christmas that much more wonderful.

　　聖誕節傳統的起源是所有節日中最吸引人的。我們喜歡的任何活動都可以追溯到歷史上特定的由來處，並且知道這些活動是如何產生的，這也是爲了慶祝更美妙的聖誕節。

　　In 2010, Santa Claus is celebrating his 1,730th birthday! The original Nicholas was born in 280 A.D. in the small country of Lycia, which is now part of modern-day Turkey.

　　2010年，聖誕老人慶祝了他的一千七百三十歲生日!其原型尼古拉斯在公元前280年出生於利西亞小國，這個國家現已併入土耳其。

　　Nicholas became first a priest and then a bishop in the early Christian church. The very first paintings of him show Nicholas wearing the ceremonial robes of a Christian bishop – red trimmed with white. When we see “Santa’s suit” today, we’re seeing those same colors.

　　在早期的____會中尼古拉斯由一名牧師晉升爲主教。尼古拉斯的第一幅畫像是他穿着基督____的儀式長袍——紅色鑲有白色的衣服。在如今的聖誕老人裝扮中，我們也能看到與其相同的顏色。

　　Nicholas became famous for gift-giving, usually to the poor. In the early fourth century a legend began to spread about Nicholas coming at night to the home of three poor girls who did not have dowries and therefore could not marry their fiancés. While the girls slept, Nicholas left gold coins in their stockings, which were drying by the fire. That’s how our tradition of Santa filling stockings got its start.

　　尼古拉斯因經常給窮人送禮而廣受讚譽。早在四世紀，相傳尼古拉斯在晚上來到三個窮苦的女孩房前，由於沒有嫁妝，她們無法和自己的未婚夫結婚。當女孩們在睡覺時，尼古拉斯把金幣放進正在烘烤的襪子裏。這正是聖誕老人把禮物放進襪子傳統的由來。

　　Santa is known my many names all over the world. He became “Santa Claus”in America because many of the first English colonists to arrive to not celebrate Christmas; as Puritans they felt the holiday was disrespectful to Jesus. But their children saw the children of Dutch settlers receiving gifts from someone called “St. Nicholas.” They thought the gift-giver’s name was “Sinter Klass” and anglicized it further to “Santa Claus.”

　　聖誕老人在世界各地有很多不同的名字。在美國，他是“聖克勞斯”(Santa Claus)，因爲第一批到來的英國殖民者大多不慶祝聖誕節;身爲清教徒，他們覺得過節是對耶穌的不敬。但是他們的孩子看到荷蘭殖民者的孩子收到來自一個名叫“聖尼古拉斯”(St. Nicholas)的禮物。他們認爲送禮人的名字是“聖特克勞斯”(SinterKlass)，再將名字英譯就是“聖克勞斯”。

　　Many people think Santa’s reindeer were introduced to the holiday in Clement Moore’s wonderful poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” which most of us now call “’Twas the Night Before Christmas.” Moore wrote about Santa and the eight reindeer in 1822. But in 1809 another great American author named Washington Irving wrote a book titled Diedrich Knickerbocker, and in it he wrote about St. Nicholas delivering presents to children “by flying over the treetops in a wagon.”Clement Moore simply expanded on that previous description.

　　很多人認爲在克萊門特•穆爾(Clement Moore)的名詩《聖古拉斯的來訪》(A Visit from St. Nicholas)中，將聖誕老人的馴鹿和節日聯繫了起來，這首詩現在也被稱爲《聖誕節前夜》(Twas the Night Before Christmas)。穆爾在1822年寫了關於聖誕老人和八隻馴鹿的故事。然而在1809年，另一名偉大的美國作家華盛頓•歐文(Washington Irving)寫了一本書《迪德里奇.尼克巴克》(Diedrich Knickerbocker)，他在書中寫道聖尼古拉斯坐着馬車飛躍在樹梢上給孩子送禮物。克萊門特•穆爾只是對以前故事的描述加以擴展。

　　The first department store Santa appeared in 1841 at J.W.Parkinson’s Dry Goods store in Philadelphia. This Santatried to slide down a chimney to impress the children who were watching, but he got stuck halfway down.

　　1841年，聖誕老人出現在第一百貨商店—— 費城的帕金森乾貨商場(J.W. Parkinson’s Dry Goods store in Philadelphia)。聖誕老人試圖滑下煙囪，來給正在觀看的小孩留下深刻印象，但是他卻卡在了那裏。

　　During the Civil War, a magazine artist named Thomas Nast began drawing cartoons of Santa as a diversion for readers from the horrors of war. He sketched Santa as living at the North Pole, and having a lot of elves as his assistants. Everyone believed that must be true.

　　內戰期間，藝術家托馬斯•納斯特(Thomas Nast)開始創作聖誕老人的漫畫，這成爲了戰爭恐怖下人們的娛樂。他勾畫出了這樣一幅畫面——生活在北極的聖誕老人，身邊圍繞着一羣調皮的小精靈助手。此後，每個人都相信有這樣一位人物。