Guest post with Ariel!

What's up pineapplelites!? It is December 7th and that means, my friends, that there are only 18 days until Christmas. Today I bring to you..... yet another guest post with Ariel! I hope you all enjoy!

Saint Nicholas

My name is Ariel, and I have believed in Santa for as long as I can remember.

Today I will talk about Santa's origins and how he became known as the man who delivers gifts to little boys and girls who have been good, and delivers coal to the little boys and girs who have been bad. Let us begin…

Okay, well we all think of Santa as the guy who has rosy red cheeks and some flying reindeer who guide his sleigh on Christmas Eve to deliver gifts to children all around the world, but it was not always like that. Santa started out as just a monk who was known for his kindness to children and he soon became known as the patron of children.  In 1822 Clement Clarck Moore wrote a long Christmas poem for his 3 daughters. He called the poem “an account of a visit from St. Nicholas” but it soon became known as “ The night before Christmas”. In 1881 political cartoonist Thomas Nast drew a picture of what he thought Santa looked like and it looked a lot like our modern day Santa. His cartoon appeared in “Harper's weekly” and the picture appeared as a cheerful man with a full white beard carrying a large sack filled with toys for lucky children around the world. It is Nast who gave Santa Claus his bright red suit and his workshop with the elves and Mrs. Claus. In the United States, Santa Claus is often described as flying from home to home on Christmas Eve to deliver toys to children. He flies on his magic sleigh led by his reindeers Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen, and the most famous reindeer of all, Rudolph. Santa enters each home through the chimney, which is why empty Christmas stockings—once empty socks, now often dedicated stockings made for the occasion—are “hung by the Chimney with care, in hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there,” as Clement Clark Moore wrote in his famous poem. Stockings can be filled with candy canes and other treats or small toys.  Santa Claus and his wife, Mrs. Claus, call the North Pole home, and children write letters to Santa and track Santa's progress around the world on Christmas Eve. Children often leave cookies and milk for Santa and carrots for his reindeer on Christmas Eve. I would also like to add a newer tradition that a lot of modern  families have   where Santa sends an elf or a few elves to watch a family in the beginning of december. Then they supposedly go back to the North Pole every night to give Santa a report of how good the children have been. I would also like to tell you about a tradition that in my house is not really a tradition because we don't do this every year. But anyways, one of the adults hides a GREEN pickle ornament somewhere on the christmas tree and the kids have to try to find it, whoever finds the pickle gets a prize. In my house, we have two elves on a shelf, Buddy and Snowball. We also have an elf at my grandmother's house, I like to call him cocoa. The elves at my house come the day after thanksgiving. So, they come a bit earlier than other elves do. Now to sum it all up, my conclusion is that after all of my research I have noticed something, there is no good reason NOT  to believe in santa. So just remember to always be on your BEST behavior because… he's making a list he's checking it twice and he's gonna find out who's naughty or nice,

Santa Clause IS coming to town!!!         The End!