While I was researching an article about Turkey the other day, I came across a couple of pieces of Christmassy information that surprised me, and that might be appropriate on this date. First, believe it or not, Santa Claus came from there. He wasn't what you'd call a kosher Turk, but he was born and raised in places that are now part of that country - on the southern, Mediterranean coast opposite Istanbul, which is up on the Black Sea. Perhaps you know this.

Perhaps I am the only one who didn't know. I have lived my life thinking that Santa Claus was born to conservative, well-to-do parents (sure, he got a little Coca-Cola sponsorship, but that wasn't going to pay all the bills) in some densely-forested, snowy area in the eastern part of Europe, like Bohemia. A starry, starry night sort of place.

I had a vague impression that he and Good King Wenceslas might have been friends. feasted together on St. Stephen's Day. hung out and compared beards, maybe, while the snow lay round about. Weren't reindeer hunted in those forests, in those days? Didn't they wear reindeer-skin doublets and natty little fore-and-aft reindeer-skin hats with feathers? It was definitely a part of the world where there were a lot of Rudolfs and that might explain something.

I thought it wasn't until later in life that he moved north. The North Pole is a convenient bit of fiction, really, Santa's real address is a mountain somewhere on the Russian-Finnish border, but the name is hard to remember, and impossible to pronounce unless you have a palate cleft by a blow from some heavy instrument. The reason for the move from Bohemia I was never clear about - might have been something about his relationships with elves, maybe the old neighbourhood started to go down hill, maybe it had something to do with wanting a better education for the subordinate Clauses.

But Turkey? I have to say that a Turkish Santa fills me with uneasiness. They don't even celebrate Christmas in Turkey. it's a Muslim country, for goodness sake. Now I know what the former French President, M. Giscard d'Estaing, must have had in the back of his mind when he told the French press that he opposed Turkey's entry into the European Union because Turkey "is not part of Europe". Ah, the French.

However, this is the Christmas season. no time for claustrophobia, as it were. And old Saint Nick does seem to have built up quite a reasonable record of good service over the years, so he must be given the benefit of the doubt. For an Anatolian, he seems to have had a perfectly reasonable pedigree. His parents died in a plague, leaving young Nicholas wealthy. He was a good Christian, and felt he should use some of his money to help the needy.

But he, too, had a conservative background.he wasn't a boaster, he felt help should be given anonymously. In Patara, the town of his birth, there lived an impoverished nobleman who, unable to provide dowries for his three beautiful daughters, decided to sell them into prostitution instead. That may sound a little harsh, but you have to remember, these people are not from here. Nicholas was horrified.

One night he went silently to the nobleman's house and tossed some gold wrapped in a cloth through the window. (Some versions have the gold dropping, purely by accident, into a stocking that had been set out to dry by the fire. You'll believe anything if you'd believe that one.)

The grateful father used the gold to marry off his eldest daughter. Nicholas came another night and threw in a second bag of gold, which become the dowry for the second daughter. Naturally, the father was dying to know who his mysterious benefactor was. Every night he waited, and when the third bag of gold came through the window, he rushed out and saw Nicholas. What a saint! A legend was born.

Later, Nicholas went on a pilgrimage to Palestine. He returned safely to settle in Myra, where he became the bishop, and he remained the bishop until he died around the year 350, after which he became the saint. In the centuries after his death, his fame spread through Byzantium and into Europe.

He was adopted as their special patron by virgins (for chucking bags of gold around, natch), thieves (because at one time he was imprisoned with some of them by the wicked Emperor of that day, Diocletian), students (for restoring to life three students who had been murdered, dismembered and pickled in brine some years before), and sailors (for calming seas in storms). So that's Saint Nicholas, aka Santa. And you know, it's not a bad story at all. I do feel the setting needs more work. My second research shocker is that even in the English-speaking world, there are two distinct types of Christmas story.

Santa Claus, out of Saint Nicholas, is the central figure in the American version. The English version's leading man, Father Christmas, has a much darker, a much more. well, I squirm and squinch to find a way of breaking this to you. You've heard people say that Hallowe'en shouldn't be celebrated because it is essentially a pagan festival, involving witches and broomsticks? Stop the presses! So is Christmas. One of the reasons Christianity spread so rapidly throughout Europe during the first millennium was the broadmindedness of Christian leaders of the time.

They were perfectly willing to incorporate the rituals, beliefs and customs of other religions, as long as people signed on the dotted line. Bit of a far cry from what goes on today, when people are prepared to start hissing about the Devil at the first sign of a couple of horns and a little tail coming into the picture. If you search for the roots of many of today's Christmas traditions, you will find your way back to the ancient Celtic festival of Alban Arthuan, held during the Winter Solstice on December 21.

The Celtic Druids were sorcerers, prophets, priests and healers. They worshipped nature and met in sacred groves. maybe not in that order. They claimed to be able to perform magical feats and cast spells on people. In truth, they claimed nothing for themselves that you can't see on Channel 13 every day of the year in this second millennium. But. perhaps we'd better not dwell on that, or Santa's going to run into more missile fire than mistletoe on his way to my house.

Alban Arthuan is also known. wait for it. as Yule, which is derived from the Anglo-Saxon word Yula, or Wheel of the Year. It marked the celebration of both the shortest day of the year and the re-birth of the sun.

Alban Arthuan was also believed to be a time of increased fertility, as were many of the so-called Fire Festivals. Mid-summer, round Cup Match-time, was another. Fertility, indeed. Complete nonsense, these Celtic theories. Putting up Christmas trees was also a Pagan custom - they hung brightly coloured decorations on their trees to symbolise objects that were of significance to them, like the sun, moon, and stars, and also to represent the souls of those dear to them who had died in the previous year.

The modern practice of giving presents evolved from a companion tradition of hanging offerings on the tree to their various Pagan Gods and Goddesses. Some of the current traditions surrounding Father Christmas can also be traced back to Celtic roots. His elves are the modernisation of the Nature Folk of the Pagan religions, and his reindeer are associated with the Horned God, one of the Pagan deities.

The ancient Druids are the first society in known history to have worn sprigs of holly and mistletoe, as you will already know if you read Asterix the Gaul. They believed that holly had magic properties. How else could it stay green for the entire year? What sporting, odds-playing person, not knowing what we know now, wouldn't wear it, or drink it or. whatever?

The same plant was also sacred to the Romans during their Saturnalia festival, which was held at about the same time of year, as I recall - perhaps in January instead of December. The Romans exchanged holly wreaths as gifts, the circle of the wreath suggesting eternal life. Early Christians who wished to be undetected during the time of the Saturnalia celebrations decked their domiciles with holly to avoid getting their faces bitten off by lions.

Mistletoe, on the other hand, was still frowned on in some circles, owing to its association with what might delicately be termed fertility and non-virginity, which I guess watered its way down to the kissing business we get these days. In 575 BCE, mistletoe was banned in Germany. This was a kiss of a different kind. It wasn't until people lightened up a bit, ten centuries later, that William Shakespeare (or Marlow, or whoever) wrote, in the 16th Century: "Then, heigh ho, the holly! This life is most jolly."

Had the gift, didn't he? Whoever he was. Anyway, believe it or not, that is supposed to have been the first time the word holly appeared in written form, and it signalled its return to the Christmas fold. People still believe it has magic properties. Farmers in England plant holly berries near their homes to ward off witches and tax officials during the long, dark winter nights.

People tie holly to their bedposts to guarantee sweet dreams. People drink it as a hot tea to ward off coughs and colds. and glaucoma down in the central parishes, if you can believe the stories you hear. Isn't it a strange old world? Inspired by the pace set by the remarkable Mr. Berra, I will summarise by observing that Christmas ain't what it used to be, and it probably never was.

Nevertheless, I hope yours is the merriest ever.

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