Hana Kōkō: What’s Wrong with Nelson’s Māori Santa?

Abstract

I was born in 1980. I grew up with Santa. He delivered gifts to our home until the day that I stopped believing and realised that my parents were behind the whole thing. They were, of course, commissioned by the jolly man himself, to procure, wrap, and hide the Christmas gifts until the Baby Jesus popped open the bubbly (or fizzy). The origins of Santa Claus are said to point to Saint Nicholas of Myra, an early Christian bishop during the time of the Roman Empire (Seal, 2006; Wheeler, 2010).