When the kid asks if Santa Claus exists, the adults answer "yes", confident that they are cunning. But I really don't want to deprive the child of a fairy tale. Maybe it's time to tell the truth?
If you ask preschoolers about this, then, most likely, the answer will be a friendly “Yes!”, Younger students will start shaking their heads with doubt. Adults will agree with the hero of Alexander Green, who said: “I understood one simple truth. It is about doing miracles with your own hands …"
These words of Arthur Gray, the hero of the "Scarlet Sails" extravaganza, became winged.
Parents take on the role of good wizards on New Year's Eve to please their little ones, impatiently rushing to the Christmas tree in search of long-awaited gifts.
On the other hand, a fabulous grandfather with a white beard can be seen at every New Year's holiday, receive a gift that he takes out of his huge bag, take a picture with him. Here he is - alive, real! Kids think so. With age, they understand that there are many such wizards, and a doubt arises in a child's heart: is there really Santa Claus?
Hero of Slavic mythology Moroz
The prototype of the modern Santa Claus can be called the hero of Slavic mythology, the deity who was "responsible" for the onset of the winter cold. Different Slavic tribes called it in their own way: Zimnik, Snegovey, Treskun, Karachun, Studenets and, by the way, Moroz. It was he who froze rivers and lakes, sent cold and icy winds with blizzards, covered the ground with snow. Like any deity, Frost could not be too supportive of people: he froze the winter crops, and the barn could get cold, and he froze the wells with ice, and he covered the roads with impassable snowdrifts.
In a word, in character he did not look too much like the good-natured grandfather Frost, familiar to a modern person. But outwardly he was similar: the Slavs represented him as a tall and strong old man with a long beard. This image can also be found in literary works. Such is, for example, Moroz Ivanovich in V. Odoevsky's fairy tale "Morozko" and the hero of A. Nekrasov's poem "Frost, Red Nose".
So, if we consider Frost to be the spirit of cold and winter, as the ancestors of the Slavs did, then we can say that he really exists: after all, winter colds come every year, frost binds the earth and covers it with snow until next spring. The laws of nature are constant, and the forces responsible for them operate invariably.
Santa Claus - a fairy tale revived
But what about the familiar character? As a giver of gifts from the forest, old man Moroz began to appear at the New Year and Christmas holidays in Russia at the end of the 19th century, but did not manage to gain widespread popularity. A revolution took place, and for more than a quarter of a century, New Year and Christmas were banned. It was believed that Soviet Russia did not need such holidays.
In the 1930s, the party decided to return to the children the tradition of dancing around the New Year tree (of course, they did not remember about Christmas).
The first Kremlin Christmas tree was held in 1937.
It was then that this half-forgotten fairy-tale character arose from oblivion, behind which the name of Santa Claus was firmly entrenched. He became the protagonists of children's parties, handed out gifts to children and became noticeably kinder. The guys also fell in love with his assistant, the Snow Maiden, who gradually turned from his daughter (for example, in the tale of the same name by N. Ostrovsky) into a granddaughter.
Now it is difficult to imagine a New Year's holiday without Santa Claus. A kind old man with a staff and a long beard can come home to congratulate the kids. And in 1999 he acquired an official "residence permit". The residence of Father Frost was opened in Veliky Ustyug. Now all year round there are excursions, during which kids and their parents can walk through the fairy forest, watch a fascinating performance, walk through the rooms of his mansion and, of course, get acquainted with the kind wizard himself. And there is no doubt: Santa Claus really exists!
