Don't underestimate the power of a snowman

Another legal question about a city or park district holiday display sparked Rev. William Beckman to conduct some research about a favorite holiday symbol that doesn't get the recognition it deserves.

Beckman, the associate pastor of Immanuel Lutheran in Batavia, started pondering the topic of controversial displays after hearing the Naperville Park District was being questioned about its legal obligation to provide a menorah for Hanukkah or have a group donate it as part of its holiday display featuring Santa Claus.

Is there a "safe" symbol? Beckman figured that a snowman would fit that bill. Wrong.

"I learned that snowmen have been the subject of litigation, especially in the person of Frosty," Beckman said in delivering his annual Christmas lore presentation last week to the Tri-Cities Exchange Club. "A New Jersey federal court of appeals ruled that plastic snowmen counterbalanced the menorah, crèche with manger and Kwanzaa symbols at a city hall display.

"They reasoned that if Frosty was absent, the whole display would have to be dismantled," Beckman said. "The court felt that (with) Frosty, Santa, the menorah and the manger were no longer religious symbols, but secular holiday decorations."

The more you research about snowmen, Beckman said, the more you realize how prominent they are in our holiday displays and stories.

"Snowmen appear everywhere on practically everything, from knickknacks to greeting cards," Beckman said. "For kids, it's probably the first and last time they create a life-size human figure."

Snowmen as pitchmen: Snowmen apparently can sell. At least that's what Beckman learned in noting that they have appeared in hundreds of films, most notably "Citizen Kane" and "Holiday Inn."

In a typical Hollywood twist, a snowman is the killer in about six films.

"Snowmen have been great pitchmen, too," Beckman added. "They have been selling just about anything you can imagine - oatmeal, tractors, Velvet tobacco, Cadillacs, children's clothes, Williams Shaving Soap, Colgate toothpaste, the Yellow Pages, Phillips Milk of Magnesia and, of course, canned ice."

Beckman said that while conducting his research, he also came across some "snowman towels" in his home.

Snowmen by the numbers: Someone actually keeps track of this stuff.

Beckman said he learned that the Snow Festival in Sapporo, Japan holds the record for most snowmen made in one place at one time at 12,379.

It is estimated that the word "snowman" triggers as many as 1,400 Internet searches a day, with "Frosty" getting about one of every three searches.

And how many snowflakes does it take to build a snowman?

"It takes about 10 trillion snowflakes to make a snowman," Beckman said.

Old St. Nick: In his presentation, Beckman also touched on the topic of St. Nicholas, whose feast day is Dec. 6 in both Eastern and Western churches.

"He was a very real person, although we know very little about him," Beckman said.

Beckman said it is known that St. Nicholas was a very generous person, which centers around the story of him giving small bags of gold to a family in such financial trouble that one of the daughters might be sold into slavery.

"He tossed the bag of gold through an open window for each of three daughters," Beckman said. "And the later additions to the story suggest that the bags were tossed down the chimney or landed in a stocking that a daughter had just happened to have washed and hung on the mantel to dry."

Beckman said that even though St. Nicholas' status in the church was reduced in 1969 because so much information about him was not verifiable, there are more churches named after him than any other saint.

Transformation to Santa: St. Nicholas was eventually transformed into Father Christmas in England, Pere Noel in France, Weinaqchtsmann in Germany, and Sinterklaas in Holland.

"Dutch colonists took him to the New World and New York City in the 1600s," Beckman noted. "Sinterklaas became Santa Claus and New Yorkers united Santa with Nordic folk tales about a magician who punished bad children and rewarded good ones."

Beckman points to author Washington Irving, best known for "Rip Van Winkle" and "Legend of Sleepy Hollow" as creating much of the tradition and legend about Santa Claus with his numerous references to St. Nicholas in his "A History of New York."

"Santa Claus, as we know him today, developed further with the well-known poem by Clement Moore, popularly called 'The Night Before Christmas,' but it was titled 'A Visit from St. Nicholas,' " Beckman added.

"There is some dispute over whether Moore wrote the poem or Revolutionary War veteran Henry Livingston did," Beckman said. "Whoever wrote it, it's still a staple of American Christmas traditions."

Of course, our modern image of Santa came into clear focus in 1931, Beckman said, when Coca-Cola cartoonist Haddon Sunblom created the rotund, jolly fellow with the fur-trimmed red suit.

No room, no inn: In concluding his presentation, Beckman touched on the journey that Mary and Joseph made into Bethlehem because of a Roman tax decree that everyone return to their birthplace for a census.

"Mary and Joseph were going to Bethlehem, but so were all of their relatives," Beckman said. "When it is said that there was no room at the inn for them, there probably wasn't an actual inn.

"There were houses with barns attached or nearby, and there probably wasn't room in one of the relatives' home for Joseph and Mary when they arrived and they had to sleep in the adjoining barn," Beckman said. "And that is where the manger was for the birth of Christ."

dheun@sbcglobal.net