The tenth month of the Roman calendar with the beginning of the year on the first March and the twelfth of the Julian old-style calendar and of the Gregorian new-style calendar, with the beginning of the year on the 1st January, it seems to be the wonderful time of the most generous "Santas" from the Romanian pantheon: Santa Nicholas, Santa Eve and Santa Claus.

The popular naming of the month, Neios, refers to the plentiful snowfall with which nature makes us happy in this period, while other local names, Andrea, Indrea and Udrea keep the memory of St. Andrew, being celebrated on the last day of the preceding month.

This month is also special because it signifies the winter's beginning in the Official Calendar (1st December), but also in the Popular Calendar (6th December, Santa Nicholas) and the Almanac (the day of the winter solstice).

What is specific for this time of the year, commercially named, Presents' Month, is that it means a great deal both for kids and grown-ups, being populated by characters that don't come empty-handed.

The first of the full bag Santas is Santa Nicholas, a real character of Christian hagiography, bishop of Myra, probably dead around 342, defender of faith in Jesus. In Romanian tradition he appears on a white horse - as a sign of the first snow - and he protects the Sun, so the people won't be deprived of light and warmth. He is the support of the sailors whom he saves from drowning, of those who are hardened - widows, orphans - and of poor girls that hardly get married. His most important quality is his generosity, being the one who brings presents to children, whom he also punishes, when they are naughty and disobedient, with his proverbial rod. It is said that Santa Nicholas has a great open-road around God, because when the sky is opening at midnight, he is seen standing at the kingly table just next to Him. Beyond the Decembers' half, in a festive atmosphere of maxim importance for Christianity and our lives, two brothers are dwelling, Santa Eve and Santa Claus. The Divinity celebrated on 24th December and being arrived, after 365 days, at the end of the road is, in Romanian tradition, Santa Eve, Santa's Claus brother.

It is known from ancient times that the Holy Virgin, being seized by the birth's pains, asked for shelter to Santa Eve. Justifying his poverty, he refused her, but he guided her steps towards his younger but richer brother, Santa Claus. In some popular legends and carols, Santa Eve appears as a shepherd of his brother's flocks.

Who was this so important character? In Romanian popular culture, Old Christmas appears as a character with two kinds of features: he has miraculous powers as the heroes and gods from the fairy-tales, but he also has typically human qualities. He is old - has a long beard and he is rich - as long as he is open-handed, but he also makes an apocryphal figure, - "He was born before all Saints", being "greater above shepherds from the village where Jesus was born". According to Ion Ghinoiu, the author of the volume "Days and Myths. The calendar of the Romanian peasant.", the Birth's legends invite us in an ethnographic landscape of a pastoral village, where Santa Eve and Santa Claus, who had big houses and stables, where living.

Suddenly, a strange woman appears in their lives, who, feeling that it was time to give birth, asked for their help. If the former refuses her, the latter gives her a helping hand. But unknowing that she is the Holy Virgin, he doesn't let her in the house and sends her to give birth in the cattle's stable. Mrs. Christmas helps her to give birth without her husband's knowledge, but then he punishes her by cutting her hands from the elbows. When the old Christmas finds out that the Lord Jesus was born in this stable, he feels sorry and he asks for God's forgiveness, becoming "the first Christian", "The oldest Saint", and "The husband of the woman that helped Maria to give birth". It is said that he was so sorry that the next day he divided his fortune to poor children, giving birth to the tradition of offering presents on Christmas, especially to children. The absence of good decency, unnatural rewarded until the identification of Old Christmas with the divine in the Romanian legends, hides a historical true: at the appearance of Christianity, Old Christmas was worshiped that he couldn't be completely excluded from the popular calendar and the Christian people's conscience. By all his doing, he opposed to Jesus Baby's birth, as this first assume the Santa's leave (death).

The contemporary traditions about "the Saint" Christmas, about "the generous kind Santa", "loaded with many presents", are among these few bookish influences that penetrated into the popular culture from west to east and from town to village.

But Old Christmas is a solar god, specific to the territories inhabited by geto-dacians, identified with the Roman god, Saturn and with the Iranian god, Mithra. More than a thousand years, the Christians celebrated the New Year's day on Christmas Day (25th December) near by the winter solstice; in Rome until the 13th century, in France until 1564, in Russia during the time of czar Peter the Great, in Romanian Countries until the end of the 19th century.

For Romanians, the memory of these times is fresh, since in some villages from Banat and Transylvania, January the 1st is named "The Small Christmas", not New Year. In the southeast European space, Christmas was a solstice feast, when people were celebrating the solar divinity.

The word "Santa (old)" indicates the age of the adored god who has to die and to revive together with the calendaristic time. Over the Christmas' autochthonous feast the Roman Saturnalia superposed (at the beginning of the 1st millennium B.C., the Saturn god was celebrated between 17th and 23rd December).

In the villages from the Mures Valley, Christmas is still connected with some popular believes that are still kept nowadays, and the custom of offering presents has its origins in a legend known only by the old men. "Christmas" is the only word in Romanian language that designates the Lord's Birth. The legends say that Santa Claus (Old Christmas) was a bad shepherd who didn't allow Holy Virgin to give birth in his stable.

In Harpia village people believe that if the first one who steps into the house on Christmas Day is a man, it's a sign of prosperity and healthfulness for the next year. In order to bring the good upon their houses, people keep the tables full all night long.

Going from house to house to sing Christmas carols is one of the Christmas's customs that is best kept in all the Romanian villages, including those from Alba County. Apart from the mystic message, a lot of customs practiced on this day are connected with the cult of fertility and with attracting of good upon the farms. The children from the Secasului Valley villages start going from house to house to sing Christmas carols and the hosts must welcome the waits. In some villages another custom is kept: the older member of the family has to throw wheat grains and maize grains in front of the waits. The elders say that if the grains the waits passed over would be given to the hens, these will be productive at egg laying. They also believe that they will have a great crop next year if they mix the grain which they put in the furrow with the grains used on the day when receiving the waits. Christmas wasn't always the same as we see it now. In fact, it became a legal feast only on the 19th century. There weren't always neither Christmas trees nor Santa Claus. And not even carols…

One of the dearest Christmas's customs, going from house to house to sing Christmas carols, was formerly forbidden. The one who decided that music is unsuitable for a solemn day as Christmas was Oliver Cromwell, who in the 19th century forbade the carols. The oldest Christian Christmas song is "Jesus refulsit omnium ", composed by St. Hillary from Poitires, in the 4th century. The oldest transcription after an old English carol is the one written by Ritson in 1410. In 1818, the Austrian assistant priest Joseph Mohr was announced a day before Christmas that the organ of his church broke and it couldn't be fixed in time for the Christmas service. Being very sad for this reason, he began writing three songs that could be sung by the choir, accompanied on the guitar. One of them was "Silent Night, Holy Night", which today is sung in over 180 languages by millions of people. The best selling Christmas song is "White Christmas" of Bing Crosby, from classical movie "Holiday inn". Over 30 million copies from this single were sold in the whole world.

Another Christmas story less known is the fact that in the 7th century the monks used the triangular form of the Christmas tree to describe the Trinity. Around 1500, people started to see the Christmas tree as a symbol of the tree from Paradise and they hanged down red apples, symbol of the original sin. In the 16th century, the Christian families started decorating the fir trees with colored paper, fruit and sweets. But before that, in the 12th century, people used to hang down Christmas trees on the ceiling, with the top of the tree down, as a symbol of Christendom. It is not clear the origin of this fact, yet.

Today we know that Jesus wasn't born on 25th December, but some time in March. December was chosen for this feast in order to coincide with Roman pagan feasts dedicated to Saturn god (Saturnalia) and Mithra (the old god of the light), a form of Sun's veneration. The first Christians weren't celebrating Jesus' birth. The birth's feast was considered in September, together with Ros Hashana (feast in the Iudaic calendar). In 264, the Saturnalia felt on the 25th December and the Roman emperor Aurelian, proclaimed this day "Natalis Solis Invicti", the festival of the invincible Sun's birth. In 320, the Pope Iuliu I specified for the first time officially the Jesus' birth's date, as being on 25th December. In 325 the emperor Constantin the Great officially introduced Christmas as a feast celebrating Jesus' birth. He also decided Sunday to be "the holy day" in a seven days week and introduced the Easter with changeable date. For all that, most of the countries didn't accept Christmas as a legal feast only in the 19th century. In the U.S.A., Alabama was the first state to adopt Christmas as a legal feast, in 1836. Oklahoma was the last state in 1907.

Formerly, even the elves weren't what they are nowadays. They were stealing the presents from beneath Christmas tree, not bringing them. The concept of elves comes from ancient faith, that the gnomes were guarding the man's house from the bad spirits. The elves were loved and hated, because although sometimes they were behaving with goodwill, they could simply turn into some malignant and unbearable creatures, when they weren't treated properly. The most spread perception was that they were the same as the person they were dealing with, malignant or nice. In the Middle Ages, they were rather expecting presents than making them.

Only in the middle of the 19th century, the elves became Santa Claus' friends. The Scandinavian writers, such as Thile, Topilus or Rydberg combined the two somehow contradictory features of the characters: they were presented as somehow malicious, but as good friends and reliable helpers of Santa Claus. Some say that there are 13 elves; others are convinced that there are 9 or 6. They are however the children of Gryla and Leppaludi. But where do they live? Well, at a time it was believed that Santa Claus and his elves are feeling great in their house from the North Pole. In 1822, the American poet Clement Clark published the literary work "A visit from St. Nicholas" (also known as "The Night before Christmas) in which he described Santa Claus as an old and kind elf, who flies round the world in a sleigh pulled by eight reindeers. In 1885, Thomas Nast drew two children watching at a world's map and following Santa's journey from the North Pole to U.S.A., so it was assumed that there, in the distant north, the kind old man lives. But in 1925 it was discovered that there were no reindeers at the North Pole, so the attention was turned over Finland, where there are many kinds of these animals. In 1927, Markus Rautio, a host of shows for children declared in a finish national radio post that Santa lives on a mountain in Laponia. But today, it seems almost certain that Santa Claus and his elves live well hidden somewhere on the Korvatunturi Mountain in Laponia, Finland, near the border with the Russia. Pepper Minstix, one of the elves is the faithful guard of the location of Santa Claus' village. How does he manage to move so quickly, in one night, from Laponia to all children's house?

A long time ago, Santa Claus and his elves discovered the special secret formula of the magic dust for reindeers, which makes them fly. This magic dust is spread over each reindeer shortly before leaving from Laponia, in the Christmas Eve. It's enough for making them fly all night long around the world. Besides, on Christmas, the flight is very fast, almost as fast as the speed of light. Rudolph is the most famous reindeer. He is the leader of the other eight ones called: Blitzen, Comet, Cupid, Dancer, Dasher, Dander, Prancer and Vixen. When Rudolph was just a cub, his nose was touched by the Christmas Magic and since then it's shiny and red. About Rudolph was written for the first time in 1939. His father is Robert May.