Father Christmas

Here we are at Christmas Day here in Australia, and this is the last post using the book Christmas in the Colonies.

Santa Claus is a mixture of Saint Nicholas and Sante Klas and other magical gift-bringer of early folk lore. By the mid 1800's he had become an elderly figure known also as Father Christmas, with a snowy white beard and a cap wreathed in holly or mistltoe, dressed from head to foot in fur trimmed clothes.

He would either deliver presents and rewards or punishment and coal to children depending on how good or naughty they were. He could squeezed down a chimney, drove a sled led buy a team of reindeer and thanks to Clement C Moore in 1848 with the story The Night Before Christmas became so well known around the world.

By the later part of the 1800's he was firmly established as part of Christmas, his image appearing on Christmas Cards, and as illustrations in story books.

He first appeared in Australia in his tradition get up in 1864, some will say he swapped his reindeer for kangaroos but nope didn't happen. Other's believed he swapped his sed for an oxen cart laden with festive eucalypt branches and Aussie Christmas tree.