Santa Claus in the full moon light

Ho ho ho – not long now, Christmas will bring joy to the hearts of the people and »Santa Claus« – this is how Father Christmas is called in America an many other countries – will ride with his flying sleigh across the sky at Christmas Eve, pulled by his reindeer with plenty of presents in the baggage. Looking at this imposing depiction of the nightly sleigh ride, the full moon is found quite often in the sky.

A quick glance into the full moon calendar, it is obvious that during the late evening and overnight hours of Christmas Eve the full moon shines only about every 19 years, sometimes the gap is even longer. So it becomes clear that Santa is out and about when the full moon does not shine and thus, there is evidently no profound connection. Our thesis: Santa simply thought the full moon was cool at the photo shoot and therefore this image was imprinted into our memories and now feels familiar. 😉

A few more words about »Santa Claus«. The name derives from the Dutch immigrants and their »Sinterklaas«, the Saint Nicholas of Myra, a bishop from Asia Minor (today’s Turkey), who lived in the 4th century and is one the best known saint and patron saint of the Christian church. Of course, his name is also the originator of the St. Nicholas day, which is celebrated in some countries – like in Germany – on the 5th or 6th of December.

This year, you won’t see the full moon during the late evening and overnight hours of Christmas Eve, quite the opposite: there will be the new moon on Christmas Eve! The next proper full moon sleigh ride Santa will do, will be in 2015, when the full moon will be on 25th December 2015 (12:11:30 pm CET/06:11:30 am EST/03:11:30 am PST).

We would like to wish all readers an especially fulfilled Christmas time and a good start into the New Year 2012!