Tom A. Jerman

The author of The Fight for "The Night," Tom A. Jerman, turned to documenting the history of Santa Claus after a thirty-five year career as a lawyer with two large international law firms. Jerman's interest in Santa began in 1985 when he started collecting Santa Claus figurines and ornaments while he was still practicing law, eventually amassing a collection of almost five thousand Santas. Jerman began Santa Claus Worldwide: A History of St. Nicholas and Other Holiday Gift-Givers, his first...See more

The author of The Fight for "The Night," Tom A. Jerman, turned to documenting the history of Santa Claus after a thirty-five year career as a lawyer with two large international law firms. Jerman's interest in Santa began in 1985 when he started collecting Santa Claus figurines and ornaments while he was still practicing law, eventually amassing a collection of almost five thousand Santas. Jerman began Santa Claus Worldwide: A History of St. Nicholas and Other Holiday Gift-Givers, his first book on the history of Santa Claus, after taking early retirement in 2015. This volume, published in 2020, documented the history of the world's midwinter gift-givers from the pagan gods who first served that role, to a Christian figure, St. Nicholas, who appeared in the Middle Ages, to a variety of "terror men" who succeeded the saint in Protestant regions following the Reformation. In America, Santa Claus first surfaced in two children's poems that were published in New York in 1821 and 1823: The Children's Friend. which created "Santeclaus" in 1821, and "A Visit from St. Nicholas," better known as "The Night Before Christmas," a poem published anonymously in 1823. In The Fight for "The Night," Jerman addresses the impact and authorship of that poem. See less