Santa Claus
Santa Claus is the fictional personification of Christmas and gift-giving at or around December 25 of each year. He’s known by different names in English: Father Christmas, Kris Kringle, and just Santa. In Italian, we call him Baba Natale.
Santa Claus is based on a real person, Saint Nicholas of Myra – hence the Germanic name, Klaus. Born born in Patara on the southwest coast of what’s now Turkey, he was bishop of Myra, on the same coast.
He’s the patron saint of sailors, merchants, brewers, pawnbrokers, as well as toymakers and children. Coming from a wealthy family, he was said to have used his money to help anonymously young teenage girls in poverity to get a start in life and marriage. From there he became associated with helping children and the legend grew about him bringing presents to all of the children in the world on Christmas morning.
As the bishop of Myra, Nicholas attended the First Council of Nicea. This fact has been disputed because he was said to spoken in support of Trinitarianism, a factor in the schism of the east breaking from Christiandom (i.e., the Catholic Church) to form what’s now the Eastern Orthodox Christian Church. What’s touchy about his position is that Nicholas is very much celebrated by Russian Orthodox Christians. In fact, he’s also known as Nick of Bari because thousands of Russian women regularly go to the Basilica of Saint Nicholas in Bari, Italy to pray before the his bones in a crypt. I’ve been there: it’s a good place to find a nice Russian girl.
Note
My favorite stamps by category are Christmas stamps. They make me wish I was in the U.S in December to send out lots of Christmas cards with Christmas stamps. The ones with holly and similar drawings make me feel good to see them. I especially like the Madonna and Child ones that show beautiful Renascence paintings, usually by Italian artists. They’re so well done. The boy in me, though, likes the Santa Claus ones. They’re so fun. As a kid, I enjoyed seeing Christmas cards arrive with Santa on the stamps.
Contains 9 spots: own 9 – 9 unused, 0 used.
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Album or Web Page Last changed Jul 22, 2025
Stamp Details
The table below lists information about the stamps shown on this page of Lighthouse’s stamp album. For more details about a particular stamp, click on its description. That will take you to the related web page of Colnect.
spot |
own |
catalog |
subject |
description |
comment |
Christmas & Holidays
✓ |
2578 |
Madonna & Child |
|
||
✓ |
2578a |
Madonna & Child |
|
||
✓ |
2582 |
|
|||
✓ |
2583 |
|
|||
✓ |
2584 |
|
|||
✓ |
2585 |
|
|||
✓ |
2580 |
|
|||
✓ |
2581 |
|
|||
✓ |
2579 |
|
Footnotes
Spot refers to the postion of the stamp on the album page (e.g., 3.2 indicates row 3, position 2).
Amt. is an abbreviation for the face amount of the stamp.
Own indicates the stamp status: ✓ for unused; ✗ for used or canceled; ⭑ signifies I ordered one; ; ✨ indicates it was bought recently; ✠ means an auction bid is pending; and ◎ is used, and it costs too much for unused.
To search by catalog number, go to the search box and enter it in the catalog number box. However, it’s a bit broken; I need to fix it.
