Santa Around the World

Father Frost and Snow Maiden from Russia.

Sinterklaas from The Netherlands

Father Christmas riding a goat.

When I was young, every year at Christmas time my sister and I would spend the weekend with Nana and Papa. We would go to downtown Vancouver to the Hudson's Bay Company to go shopping. After we were done and had lunch (and tried out the adjustable beds), Papa would drive us to Woodward's and we would walk around the building looking at the fancy displays in the windows. They were all scenes of winter and Christmas with automated people and animals. One display in particular always fascinated me - it was the different Santas from around the world. I thought that it was interesting that other children had different versions of a gift-giving visitor. 

In North America, we have Santa Claus, who lives with his wife and toy making elves at the North Pole. He delivers gifts to good boys and girls on Christmas Eve, flying through the air on a sleigh pulled by eight (nine if you include Rudolph) magical reindeer. 

 In Italy, La Befana flies through the air on her broomstick, entering homes through the chimney and delivering gifts and candy on the eve of January 6th. 

In Russia, the kids are visited by Father Frost and his granddaughter, Snow Maiden. He leaves gifts under the New Year Tree on New Year's Day and travels on a sled pulled by three horses. He also carries a long magical staff with him.

In France, children leave their shoes by the fire, filled with treats for Pere Noel's donkey, Gui (French for Mistletoe). Pere Noel will leave gifts in their place if the children have been good. 

In some parts of Europe and South America, Christkind, a sprite-like child with blonde hair and wings, is the gift bringer to children. 

I asked my friend Terhi to tell me about her experience as a child in Finland. This is what she wrote to me:

To tell you about my own experience with Santa Claus… Finnish Santa Claus is called “joulupukki”. Direct translation would be “Christmas goat”. In Finland Santa knocks on the door on Christmas Eve.  The younger the kids the earlier Santa comes. A good Santa stays for a while, asks the kids to sing to him, and then delivers presents before leaving. The way you get Santa to actually come to your house is to ask a relative or a friend to act as Santa. Usually parents leave a sack of presents outside the door and Santa grabs it before coming in.

Many times the father goes out to look for Santa and miraculously, while he’s gone, Santa shows up! That’s what happened to us when I was four or five. We got tired to waiting for Santa and so my dad went out to look for him. And pretty soon Santa was knocking at our door. He brought me the coolest sled! We didn’t have time to open all the presents while he was there, as he absolutely had to go and visit some other good kids. Pretty soon after he left dad came back. Imagine that!

We saw Santa coming to our house only that one time. He always came when we were gone to the cemetery on Christmas Eve afternoon and left a bag of presents next to the tree. Many people visit graves on Christmas Eve. They even have a special bus line from downtown to the main cemeteries that day. People take candles and point settles (sp?) to the graves.

Finnish Santa Claus used to be skinnier than his American cousin and not as jolly  (after all, he IS Finnish! J ) Many times he wore vest made of fur and used a cane to walk – and to tap on the floor. In a way Finnish Santa was a bit scary. I remember running away from the department store Santa, because he was so scary. He would walk around and hand out candy, but my sister and I didn’t want to get close to him. It’s so weird when you think about all the kids over here who line up to see Santa at the mall!

I can’t remember telling department Santas what I wanted for Christmas. They were always walking around so you couldn’t sit on their lap. I guess their main job was to hand out candy.:-) We would write to Santa, though, and tell him what we wanted.

I think these days Finnish Santa  looks more and more like American Santa. I think that’s a move to the right direction! I have always liked American Santa, as he’s so big and happy and friendly-looking. He’s somebody that you really want to go and talk to, not somebody to run away from. J

Most versions of Santa Claus, Father Christmas, Pere Noel, are based on Saint Nicholas, the 4th C Greek bishop who was well known for giving to the poor. Variations occurred when each culture incorporated their own local myths with St. Nick. It is also interesting to note that while the North American Santa Claus lives at the magical North Pole, most of the European and Asian versions live in Korvatunturi,  Finland, a real town.