How to draw Santa Claus step by step

How to draw Santa Claus will be discussed in this article! But first, let’s briefly explore the origins of Santa Claus—the main symbol of Christmas and New Year’s—which involve the eternal return, Dutch immigrants, U.S. retail sales, and the Queen of the United Kingdom.

The modern image of Santa Claus comes from the semi-mythical, semi-historical figure of Saint Nicholas. Saint Nicholas lived in the 3rd–4th centuries; he was a monk and the Bishop of Myra, spreading the faith throughout Asia Minor and helping the suffering and the sick. He was generous: he inherited a fortune from his parents and gave it to the poor, the suffering, and the vulnerable.

By the Renaissance, Saint Nicholas had become one of the most popular saints in Western Europe; he was considered the patron saint of children and sailors. He was especially revered in the Low Countries—the region that now encompasses the Netherlands, northern Germany, and Belgium. On the night of December 6, Saint Nicholas—or Sinterklaas—would fill the little shoes that children placed by their beds and hearths with treats.

In European tradition, Saint Nicholas was depicted and portrayed specifically as a Christian bishop: wearing a tall hat, a robe, and carrying a staff. He became the patron saint of children in folklore because of the legend of the resurrection of three children who were killed and pickled by a wicked butcher during a famine. The depiction of this myth became popular; the story itself spread among the people and became distorted, but because of the image of children alongside the saint, ordinary people came to see him as a protector of children.

Drawing Santa Claus isn’t exactly easy, but it can still be done step by step. So, in the Netherlands, a tradition developed of giving gifts to well-behaved children and twigs to misbehaving ones on Sinterklaas Day—December 6, the date of St. Nicholas’s death. This was a fairly localized Western European tradition, which the Protestant Church even tried to ban and eliminate as a Catholic superstition. But in the 17th century, it made its way to America along with the Dutch colonists.

In the 1600s, the east coast of what would become the United States of America was partly British territory and partly Dutch. And the city that would later become New York was called New Amsterdam from 1626 to 1664. But St. Nicholas Day, on December 6, was celebrated, and this holiday began to spread beyond New Amsterdam and other Dutch colonies, in part due to intermarriages with English-speaking Americans.

In the region that would later become the New York metropolitan area, New Jersey, and Delaware, Sinterklaas evolved into Santa Claus. December is the month of celebrations and gifts for a reason. If we take the astronomical calendar—on which the agricultural calendar was based and which reflects key solar events—as our starting point, December marks the winter solstice, the longest night of the year.

And now, let’s move right on to drawing Santa Claus himself!