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Sinterklaas is the basis for the North American figure of Santa Claus. It is often claimed that during the American War of Independence, the inhabitants of New York City, a former Dutch colonial town (New Amsterdam), reinvented their Sinterklaas tradition, as Saint Nicholas was a symbol of the city's non-English past. [55]
"Santa Claus" derives from his Dutch name, "Sint Nikolaas," or "Sinter Klaas" for short. Dutch immigrants began to spread knowledge of the saint to the American public in the late 1700s.
Ded Moroz, and on occasion the Belarusian Dzied Maroz, are presented in the media as being in on-going détente with various counterparts from other cultures, such as the Estonian Santa Claus (Jõuluvana or "Old man of Yule"), the Finnish Santa Claus (Joulupukki or "Yule Goat"), and other Santa Claus, Father Christmas, and Saint Nicholas figures.
Zwarte Piet (English: Black Peter or Black Pete, French: Père-Fouettard, meaning father whipper) is the companion of Saint Nicholas (Dutch: Sinterklaas) in the folklore of the Low Countries. The character first appeared in his current form in an 1850 book by Jan Schenkman and is commonly depicted as a blackamoor.
His Christmas image in the Harper's issue dated 29 December 1866 was a collage of engravings titled Santa Claus and His Works, which included the caption "Santa Claussville, N.P." [34] A colour collection of Nast's pictures, published in 1869, had a poem also titled "Santa Claus and His Works" by George P. Webster, who wrote that Santa Claus's ...
A benevolent tradition associated with Sinterklaas is poem-gifting, but the holiday is also controversial because of the figure Zwarte Piet (Black Pete), who accompanies St. Nicholas and helps to ...
Nine years later, the first known association between reindeer and Santa Claus appeared in an anonymous poem entitled “A New Year’s Present”. The unnamed deer are mentioned briefly and only ...
Belsnickel (also known as Belschnickel, Belznickle, Belznickel, Pelznikel, Pelznickel, Bell Sniggle [1]) is a crotchety, fur-clad Christmas gift-bringer figure in the folklore of the Palatinate region of southwestern Germany along the Rhine, the Saarland, and the Odenwald area of Baden-Württemberg.