Apparently the Saint Nikolaus was Orthodox. But that is not the tradition that my mother was raised in. With Saint Nikolaus came Krampus as I posted above. Krampus was a figure from German folklore and in the Dutch and Austrian, East European tradition, inextricably tied to St. Nikolaus. Krampus brought naughty children coals. That's where that part of our Santa Clause tradition comes from.
The Coca-Cola ads may have teen the source for the fat Santa Claus, but the Dutch tradition was much earlier.
And then there is the Christkind who visits German and Austrian children on Christmas Eve. Yet another fascinating custom.
The Christkind (German "Christ-child", pronounced [ˈkʁɪstkɪnt]) is the traditional Christmas gift-bringer in regions of Austria, the Czech Republic, Croatia, parts of Germany, Italy, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Portugal, Switzerland, Slovakia, Hungary, France, Upper-Silesia in Poland, parts of Hispanic America, in certain areas of southern Brazil and in the Acadiana region of Louisiana. In Italian, it is called Gesù Bambino, in Portuguese Menino Jesus ("Jesus Boy"
, in Hungarian Jézuska ("Little Jesus" , in Slovak Ježiško ("Little Jesus" , in Czech Ježíšek ("Little Jesus" , in Latin America "Nino Dios" ("God Child" and in Croatian Isusić ("Little Jesus" .
Promulgated by Martin Luther, explicitly to discourage the figure of St. Nicholas, at the Protestant Reformation in 16th-17th-century Europe, many Protestants changed the gift bringer to the Christ Child or Christkindl, and the date of giving gifts changed from December 6 to Christmas Eve.[1] A gift-bringer familiar to children in Central Europe, the Christkind bears little resemblance to the infant of Bethlehem.[2] The Christkind was adopted in Catholic areas during the 19th century, while it began to be gradually replaced by a more or less secularized version of Saint Nicholas, the Weihnachtsmann (Father Christmas, Santa Claus) in Protestant regions.
The Christkind is a sprite-like child, usually depicted with blond hair and angelic wings. Martin Luther intended it to be a reference to the incarnation of Jesus as an infant. Sometimes the Christ Child is, instead of the infant Jesus, interpreted as a specific angel bringing the presents, as it appears in some processions together with an image of little Jesus Christ. It seems also to be rooted in the Alsatian-born myth of a child bringing gifts to the baby Jesus.[citation needed] Children never see the Christkind in person, and parents tell them that Christkind will not come and bring presents if they are curious and try to spot it. The family enters the living room, where the Christmas tree has been put up, for the opening of presents (the Bescherung) when the parents say that they think that the Christkind who has brought the presents has now left again. In some traditions, the departure is announced by the ringing of a small bell, which the parents pretend to have heard or which is secretly done by one of the adults in the family.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christkind
Why were so many figures in the European customs white? Because ordinary Europeans mostly only knew white people. There weren't many people of other races amongst them. No point in getting upset about it. How many African folk tales or customs feature white people? It would be beyond the culture for that to happen. It isn't racism. It is just ignorance about the world that caused isolate people to create folk images that looked like themselves.
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