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Comment by teruakohatu | Hacker News Reader

It was an evolution, the myth and the sleigh was already there, the beard goes back hundreds of years. This page has a good overview of the image of Santa over the centuries:

https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/a-pictorial-histor...

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Absolutely, I find this claim of "created santa" is so silly that it sounds like revisionist history. Kazakhstan, Lithuania and other regions have "Santa" traditions that go back over a hundred years and it is mostly indistinguishable than the "propaganda" version.

Almost all Kazakhs are Sunni Muslims. If you've meant Christian populations like Russians, then I would be interested to see what's special about Russian Kazakhstani's Santa traditions.

I'd also like to see a hundred or more years old Lithuanian Santa version similar to the Unionist one.

This is not to dismiss your claim that this might be revisionist (I'm not sure), but your examples on Kazakhstan and Lithuania lack evidence.

Not an answer, mostly a hint :) But could it be that the folklore of Odin / Wodan came there through the Vikings? The Dutch Sinterklaas is partly based on the Wild Hunt of Odin. Odin might have inspired more civilisations with the same concept.

Didn't you know? All culture of the world revolves around the US /s

The Netherlands has something called "Sinterklaas". But I think celebrating children and giving presents to them is something that goes back to the very origin of mankind and can be found all over the world.

Sinterklass is just how the Dutch pronounce Saint Nicolas.

Americans bastardized it to Santa Claus. As we do.

Let’s not forget the fine German tradition of the Christmas pickle.

That no one in Germany knows about… https://youtu.be/Sb0qu_RjQ6I

There are some people that are susceptible to the idea of new information being more canonical than the prior information they were initially exposed to, as opposed to merely an alternate amongst many alternates.

They seem to agree with the premise (``[Nast] created the modern image of Santa Claus''):

``The cartoonist Thomas Nast established the bounds for Santa Claus' current look with an initial illustration in an 1863 issue of Harper's Weekly, as part of a large illustration titled "A Christmas Furlough".''

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