TMW my birthday is 2 days from now and my older sister is going to the hospital to be induced for labor tonight… baby born tomorrow and my birthday on the day after
Saint Nicholas sure had an influence, too. But Santa Claus how we know him today didn’t exist before Coca Cola. In the past he wasn’t red and neither was he fat. He was often called Father Christmas.
Many Christmas traditions were taken of the Yule festival. And Odin was the Yule Father.
There are lots of similarities.
In Germany, St.Nicholas Day is celebrated in the beginning of december.
And do you want to see how the austrians celebrate it?
St. Nicholas scared the shit out of me when I was still in Kindergarten and “he” came around, asking if we all had been good children while threatening us with his birchwood rod in case we would lie to him. I wasn’t all too keen about the 6th of December
where I lived this was common. the Nikolaus became a synonym for terror and getting forced to learn poems and songs to please him (and not getting punished in the process, lol) and no child knew who the fuck Knecht Ruprecht was or why he should be scarier than the strict beard guy.
So much THIS. I still remember how we would look at each other in fear when St. Nicholas day was celebrated in Kindergarten (I was sent to Kinderkrippe soon after my birth and to Kindergarten when I was three, so until school started we had some “moments” with this old dude from hell). Nobody liked the whole procedure
Our parents and kindergarten teachers told us that he would beat us up with his rod and the he would force us to eat coal until we would turn into good children again