Oh! You better watch out,
You better not cry,
You better not pout,
I’m telling you why:
Santa Claus is coming to town!
And this is all that I got:
… not even a lousy flute for me …
Also known as Sancte Claus. 
A little history…
About 300 years after Christ, Pope Julius declared December 25 the birthday of Christ (even though popes weren’t officially called popes yet). A little later on, another pope instructed churches to use greenery as decoration during Christmas celebrations to combat pagan practices, but only after some bishop in Germany forbid the use of evergreens because they were too pagan. About a thousand years ago, Christmas nealy died out in Europe. When Nikolai Chudovorits was first introduced to Christianity, it took Europe a long time to warm up to him. After all, coming from Siberia, he brought with him a cool reception with his reindeer. Then Martin Luther lighted the first tree. In the early American colonies, celebration of Christmas was forbidden. But Washington Irving introduced Sinterklaas riding in a wagon over rooftops, and Thomas Nast produces a series of illustrations for Harper ‘s Weekly that transforms Santa Claus from a small gnome–like elf to a figure in a red fur–trimmed costume. In the mid-late 1800, Christmas was finally declared a legal holiday in America. Coco Cola then dressed Santa up totally in red…and the image has remained until Claudine introduced him as the Pope. 
As far as I know, St Nicolas did not come from Sibiria. He was a bishop in the area of modern Turkey, and lived in the 4th century. His traditional dress is that of a bishop. And the pope is dressed in white.
And for a bit of the political history of Santa Claus, Stephen Nisenbaum’s essay in Common-Place, http://www.common-place.org/vol-01/no-02/moore/index.shtml. It is ostensibly on the disputed authorship of “The Night Before Christmas” but in part 3 he gets into Why It Matters:
In the real world of New York, misrule came to a head at Christmastime. As I have shown in my book The Battle for Christmas, this season had traditionally been a time of carnival behavior, especially among those whom the knickerbockers considered “plebeians.” Bands of roving youths, lubricated by alcohol, went about town making merry, making noise, and sometimes making trouble. Ritual usage sanctioned their practice of stopping at the houses of the well-to-do and demanding gifts of food and especially drink–a form of trick-or-treat commonly known as “wassailing.” After 1800, this Christmas misrule took on a nastier tone, as young and alienated working-class New Yorkers began to use wassailing as a form of rambling riot, sometimes invading people’s homes and vandalizing their property. One particularly serious episode took place during the 1827 Christmas season; one newspaper reported it to have been the work of a mob that was not only “stimulated by drink” but also “enkindled by resentment.” The newspaper warned its readers not "to wink at such excesses, merely because they occur at a season of festivity. A license of this description will soon turn festivals of joy, into regular periods of fear to the inhabitants, and will end in scenes of riot, intemperance, and bloodshed.
Nissenbaum’s thesis is that Knickerbockers such as Washington Irving and Clement Moore tried to civilize Christmas and bring it indoors to make it a family festival instead of just another excuse for hooliganism deplored by such upper-crust New Yorkers.
It’s an interesting piece; in fact, the whole journal is interesting ifyou happen to be an American history wonk.
But who is the fellow in black next to Father Christmas? I don’t believe he has made it into American traditions.
Roger
Looks like “Zwarte Piet” (Black Pete). A Dutch fellow who accompanies Sinterklaas in Holland.
Cheers,
David
This from widdershins.org:
–As Charlemagne began his conversion process, the legend of St. Nicholas was born. He was said to have been the Bishop of Myra in Lycia, now Turkey. According to “The Origin of Santa Claus” at www.religioustolerance.org, “He is alleged to have attended the first council of Nicea; however, his name does not appear on lists of attending bishops.” Www.religioustolerance.org calls him a “Christianized version of various pagan sea gods - the Greek god, Poseidon, the Roman god, Neptune, and the Teutonic god, Hold Nickar.” Crichton dates St. Nicholas even earlier, claming he was imprisoned in 303, during the Roman emperor Diocletian’s effort to return the Empire to the worship of its old gods. Later, Constantine supposedly released him.
Nicholas was credited with many miracles, including aiding sailors at sea, providing dowries for young women who otherwise could not marry and using prayer to resurrect three little boys who had been killed and pickled in brine. He performed miracles even after his death on December 6, 342; a mysterious liquid dubbed the Manna of St. Nicholas was collected annually from his tomb and used to heal the faithful. The tales of St. Nicholas spread to Russia as Christianity converted the Eastern world. He became known as “Nikolai Chudovorits,” the Wonder Worker.
By the seventeenth century, the patron saint reached Siberia, where tribes of nomadic horsemen lived. These tribes lived in tents during the summer, but north of the Arctic Circle, they needed something sturdier during winter. Their timber huts became buried in snow, with the only way in or out being by ladder through the smoke holes in the roof. Their annual renewal ceremony, according to Crichton, took place with their shaman entering a trance and climbing on a symbolic journey through the smoke hole. Christian tradition overtaking the indigenous religion, Nikolai became a Super Shaman, acting as a “mystic go-between for the people and their new Christian God.” He would descend the smoke hole, another way of jumping over fire, to deliver gifts.–
I think you’ve got it a bit bass-ackwards, there, Lorenzo. 
Unless, of course, what you meant was that ol’ Chudovorits became part of the American symbology? Hard to tell by how you wrote it.
Man, saying and spelling “Chudovorits” would have distressing implications for xmas song rhyming as well as writing letters to Santy…
December 6th is THE big day for little kiddies here. That’s when they get presents, toys and chocolates. The black guy is the “Houseker”, he is the servant of the “Kleeschen”. The good children get presents from the Kleeschen, and the bad kids get a wooden stick from the Houseker. But usually on that special day they are all considered to be little angels.
Sung to the tune of “Jingle Bells”:
"Chudovorits, Chudovorits,
Coming to your town;
He doesn’t up your chimney go,
Instead he wiggles down.
Chudovorits, Chudovorits,
Shaman nonpareil,
Have a trance and do a dance;
You know you might as well."
This is certainly true for these two fellows. I happen to know them quite well. 
Is it, like, a universal requirement that Santa be played by drunks and reprobates?
True, the original Nicolas was from Myra in Lycia, but you know how one myth leads to another. So he became Nikolai in about the year 1000, in Siberia, and Nikolai now becomes St. Nicolas again, and that’s why he’s believed to be from the North Pole, not Turkey. BTW, his reindeer ate the amanita mushrooms and thus could fly…and the smoke holes in the roof were probably the huts where they use to burn the 'shrooms…mush-rooms. Well, [u]here[/u], read it for yeself, good old St. Nick use to inhale the smoke hisself and what was originally an expression related to incense, now took on a whole new meaning-- “holy smokes.”
Funny how way leads on to way. After all, Santa and Christ need to share the same world with each other. I’ve often wondered what was back-assward about it all.
Still, have a Merry Christmas, and cheery cheery to all!
Ah, yes, R. Gordon Wasson. That was a very interesting (if lengthy) book to read. Very compelling points, and it’s also very interesting how Amanita muscaria has similar associations around the world, lightning for one.
BA! HUMBUG!!! 
My kids all put their shoes out in hopes of having them filled with goodies tomorrow morning by St. Nicolas.
I believe that he’s known as St. Nicholas of Myra (Turkey) where he was Bishop, and also St. Nicholas of Bari (Italy) for his body was stolen by Italian merchants and then taken to Bari.
BTW, great pictures, Claudine! 
Very interesting history. And Claudine, nice avatar.
Ofcourse little Dutch boys and girls still think the good Saint arrives from Spain in his steamboat (the former signifying any old foreign place while the latter isn’t viable when trying to get to Luxembourg).
Heh heh… well… as you find out, Lorenzo’s not a big fan of conventional history.
Happy St. Nicholas Day (today, as of this writing)!
[u]Right[/u]! And to think…New York use to be called New Amsterdam! And Christmas use to be on Dec. 6!
Coca-Cola didn’t invent the red-suited Santa, he’d been around for almost 50 years before they used him to help boost sales of their fizzy drink at Christmas.
See: http://www.snopes.com/cokelore/santa.asp for a pretty good write-up on the subject.
As they say there: “Coca-Cola certainly helped make Santa Claus one of the most popular men in America, but they didn’t invent him.”