40+FAB Blog

The fat man with the red bag

There are two stories that have come to be known with Christmas. The one of Jesus Christ’s birth and the other more modern tale of Santa Claus. 


Santa Claus as he has come to be known was born Nicholas sometime around 280 A.D. in Patara, near Myra in modern-day Turkey. Much admired for his piety and kindness, St. Nicholas became the subject of many legends. It is said that he gave away all of his inherited wealth and traveled the countryside helping the poor and sick. There remains very little historical evidence of his life, nothing was found written by him or maybe his proteges.
It has therefore been easy for his story to morph from one of a generous helper of men to that of a big fat man with a red bag living at the North Pole who rides on a sleigh once a year to give presents to children all over the world. As flattering as Santa sounds, I am not too sure St. Nick will be too pleased with what he has transformed into. 


The older story of Christmas has however remained constant over the years. Jesus lived about 300 years before St. Nicholas, yet the account of his life is much clearer. Maybe it’s because he referred to himself as The Word and therefore lived in a way that caused his-story to be written in the hearts of his proteges such that each one that wrote about him had very similar accounts of his life and accomplishments. 


Who would you allow to record the narrative of your life and times? or would you leave it to chance? 
Living our life in a way that will cause another to write accurately about us is what we should strive for, but taking our own pen to write our own story is a sure way to guarantee that we do not end up as a version of the fat man with the red bag.