Does Santa Claus Have a Wife? The Real History of Mrs. Claus

When did Santa get a wife?

The first known mention dates to 1849. That year James Rees, a Philadelphia playwright and author, published a short story called "A Christmas Legend" in his collection *Mysteries of City Life*. The story brings up Santa's wife through a couple who disguise themselves as travelers and ask a family for shelter. As *Mental Floss* points out, the ending has a twist: the strangers turn out to be long-lost relatives in a double disguise. Still, the idea of a Mrs. Claus was out in the world.

Two years later, in December 1851, the *Yale Literary Magazine* of New Haven, Connecticut, named her for the first time: "Mrs. Santa Claus" helps her husband dress for the holidays. In 1854, *The Opal*, a magazine written by patients of the State Lunatic Asylum in Utica, New York, described a Christmas musicale where Mrs. Claus joined in and waltzed around the room.

Over the next years she shows up in small touches, like a character everyone already knows. In February 1862, *Harper's* mentions her in passing in its "Editor's Easy Chair" column. In 1864, in Robert St. Clar's novel *The Metropolites*, she appears in a dream wearing Hessian boots and red petticoats. Red, already. For the story behind that color, read why Santa wears red.

1. 1849James Rees brings up Santa's wife in "A Christmas Legend."
2. 1851The *Yale Literary Magazine* calls her "Mrs. Santa Claus."
3. 1854In Utica, *The Opal* describes her dancing at a Christmas party.
4. 1889Katharine Lee Bates gives her a voice in a long poem.

The 1889 poem where Mrs. Claus asks for the sleigh

The text that changed everything came out in Boston in 1889, from the publisher D. Lothrop: *Goody Santa Claus on a Sleigh-Ride*, by Katharine Lee Bates. "Goody" is short for *goodwife*, the woman of the house. For the first time Mrs. Claus speaks, and she is not pleased. She tends the fir-tree forests, she makes the toys, and her husband gets all the credit.

She gets her seat. While Santa climbs down the chimneys, she holds the reindeer. She peeks through skylights at sleeping children, and in a dark garret she leaves a fallen star to write by and a music box that plays the rain. To the poor girl who lives there with her father, she also leaves a sash the color of a sunset. When Santa tears a stocking at the heel and toe, she darns it with moonbeam thread, then fills it for an orphan boy with a paint box, frost-fruits and kisses. The poem ends at dawn, with Goody calling herself "gladdest of the glad." Bates reprinted it in 1916 in her collection *Fairy Gold*.

What is Mrs. Claus's first name?

No single tradition gives her one. Nineteenth-century writers simply called her "Mrs. Santa Claus" or "Goody Santa Claus." In France she is la Mère Noël, Mother Christmas, a title built on her husband's name rather than a first name.

The best-known first name in the US comes from television. In *Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town*, a Rankin/Bass stop-motion special that first aired on ABC on December 13, 1970, she is Jessica, the schoolteacher of Sombertown, a town whose mayor has banned toys. She falls for Kris Kringle, stands by him when he is locked up, and marries him. Together they set up a toy workshop at the North Pole. The special even explains that Santa delivers on Christmas Eve because it is their wedding anniversary.

• Goody Santa Claus: Katharine Lee Bates's poem, 1889
• Jessica: Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town, Rankin/Bass, 1970
• Mary Christmas: It's Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown, 1992
• Mère Noël: the everyday French name

What does Mrs. Claus do at the North Pole?

Her job has changed with the times. In the 1878 children's book *Lill's Travels in Santa Claus Land*, a lady at a golden desk keeps the ledger of children's good deeds. On January 22, 1887, Eugene C. Gardner published "A Hickory Back-Log," a fantasy in *Good Housekeeping* narrated by an architect. Mrs. Claus, dressed in green and plaid, marches in with a list of complaints about his kitchen designs. "Don't interrupt me," she keeps telling him.

A 1919 postcard shows her wrapping a scarf around Santa's neck before he sets off. Over time the stories settled her into a homier role: running the household, helping with the preparations and keeping an eye on the elves. *Mental Floss* sums up the modern picture as a plump, cheerful helpmeet who fills Santa's Thermos with cocoa and waves as the sleigh lifts off. The same magazine notes that in the nineteenth century she had a lot more fire.

Mrs. Claus on stage, on record and on screen

In the twentieth century Mrs. Claus became a character in her own right. In 1914, Bell Elliott Palmer's one-act play was titled *Mrs. Santa Claus, Militant*, and she took up a cause of her own. In 1953, Nat King Cole recorded "Mrs. Santa Claus" with Nelson Riddle's orchestra. In 1971, the comedy duo Cheech & Chong even had a hit with "Santa Claus and His Old Lady."

1. 1923Sarah Addington publishes *The Great Adventure of Mrs. Santa Claus*.
2. 1963Phyllis McGinley publishes *How Mrs. Santa Claus Saved Christmas*.
3. 1974Shirley Booth voices her in *The Year Without a Santa Claus*.
4. 1996Angela Lansbury plays the title role in the TV musical *Mrs. Santa Claus*.
5. 2023Sheryl Lee Ralph becomes the first Black woman to play Mrs. Claus in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Back in 2009, a Boost Mobile commercial featuring Mrs. Claus stirred up controversy in the US. In 2016, the British retailer Marks & Spencer made her the star of its Christmas ad, a version the UK press called feminist. Two years later, NPR reported that party performers were getting more and more requests for Mrs. Claus on her own, without her husband.

Has Santa had a baby?

The old traditions give Santa no children. The legend of Saint Nicholas, the 1823 poem, Thomas Nast's engravings and Katharine Lee Bates's poem never mention a son or a daughter. In the 1970 special, Kris Kringle does have a family, but it is the one that took him in as a baby: the Kringles, a clan of toymaking elves who teach him their trade and raise him far from Sombertown.

Only one early document shows Mrs. Claus with an infant. In 1854, *The Opal* reported that at the Utica asylum's Christmas party, "her Ladyship" danced with a baby in her arms. The magazine said the child had been "committed to our care," and the writers said they kissed it. Author Pamela McColl, who studied the text for her book *Wondrous Mrs. Claus*, treats it as one of Mrs. Claus's earliest public appearances. Nothing suggests the baby was Santa's.

Is Santa an elf?

The question comes from one line. In "A Visit from St. Nicholas," printed anonymously on December 23, 1823, in the *Sentinel* of Troy, New York, Santa arrives in "a miniature sleigh" pulled by "eight tiny reindeer." The driver is "a little old driver, so lively and quick." Then the poem calls him "a right jolly old elf."

Clement Clarke Moore was first named as its author in 1837, an attribution that is now disputed. The word *elf* there mostly describes the character's size and pep: this Santa is small enough to fit a miniature sleigh and nimble enough to go up a chimney with a nod. Thomas Nast's engravings, starting in 1863, and the images of the twentieth century then settled him into the shape of a bearded old man. In most stories today the roles are split: Santa and Mrs. Claus are human, and the elves work alongside them. For more on Santa's age and history, read how old is Santa Claus.