• Tattorack@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    No, but it’s a myth so common basically everyone believes it to be true.

    The Santa we have today is an amalgamation of a few characters. The red outfit comes from Saint Nicolas. You can just look up “Saint Nicolas” and you’ll find many fairly old depictions of a Christian bishop-like character in red garments carrying a bag of gifts.

    • x00z@lemmy.world
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      6 days ago

      Interesting. I found it weird Santa looked so much like Saint Nicolas. Which we celebrate here.

      • oktoberpaard@feddit.nl
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        6 days ago

        The Dutch brought Sinterklaas (Saint Nicholas) to New Amsterdam, current day NYC, which has developed into Santa Claus as we know it know. Santa Claus is a phonetic derivation of Sinterklaas.

        Apparently he was depicted as a thick-bellied Dutch sailor with a pipe and a green outfit in Washington Irving’s History of New York book, so maybe that’s where you got that idea from.

        Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Claus