History Of Wackemall
William Wickenden, Santa Claus And His Reindeer
As historians everywhere will confirm, Santa Clause, aka Saint Nicholas, didn’t always live at the North Pole. As a matter of fact, St Nick was born in Asia Minor (Greek Anatolia in present-day Turkey) in the Roman Empire, to a Greek family during the third century AD in the city of Patara at a time when the region was Greek.
Originally Santa couldn’t fly, didn’t use reindeer, and didn’t travel the entire world delivering presents to good little girls and boys. You see, in the beginning, Santa just passed out presents in and around the port city where he lived.
But in time, as more and more people heard about what old Saint Nick was doing, they wanted presents too. So Saint Nicholas started expanding his route, taking on more and more deliveries every year.
Eventually he had to import a team of reindeer and a sleigh to ride all over Europe delivering presents to good little girls and boys one night a year. The Dutch knew him as Sinterklaas but when they sailed across the Atlantic Ocean in the 1600s to a place they called New Amsterdam, known today as New York City, they started calling him Santa Claus.
But a change in name wasn’t the only change Santa would face.
You see, while Santa’s stables turned out the fasted reindeer anywhere, crossing the Atlantic added thousands of miles to his journey. On top of that, reindeer are not great swimmers. It was going to be very hard for Santa Claus to deliver presents across oceans and all around the world.
And so it was, a Dutch Cobbler, named William Wickenden, a maker of wooden shoes who refused to stick to his last, best known as the co-founder of Providence, Rhode Island, told Santa Claus about Wackemall and its amazing effects on animals. By feeding Wackemall to the reindeer the reindeer are given the super powers needed to pull the sleigh through the air at supersonic speeds without causing sonic booms, thus allowing Santa to secretly deliver presents to all the good boys and girls all around the world in only one night.
And so it is, with the Holidaze closing in on us we complete another chapter of The History of Wackemall.
Until next time, Merry Christmas from Wackemall Media, Mining, and Manufacturing, Wackemall.com, ’cause there’s nothin’ better to do.