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This category is for mythical and/or fictional characters who play a role in Christmas Stories and/or folktales. Subcategories This category has the following 9 subcategories, out of 9 total.
Christmas gift-bringers in Europe. This is a list of Christmas and winter gift-bringer figures from around the world. The history of mythical or folkloric gift-bringing figures who appear in winter, often at or around the Christmas period, is complex, and in many countries the gift-bringer – and the gift-bringer's date of arrival – has changed over time as native customs have been ...
This category is for mythical, religious and/or pop culture characters who play a role in holidays. Subcategories This category has the following 5 subcategories, out of 5 total.
The Belsnickel character originated in the Palatinate. When people immigrated to Pennsylvania, they brought their German traditions with them. [6] Belsnickel was known in Pennsylvania in the early 1800s. [4] Amongst the Pennsylvania Germans, Belsnickel is the character who visits homes prior to Christmas to check up on the behavior of the children.
1900s illustration of Saint Nicholas and Krampus visiting a child. The Krampus (German: [ˈkʁampʊs]) is a horned anthropomorphic figure who, in the Central and Eastern Alpine folkloric tradition, is said to accompany Saint Nicholas on visits to children during the night of 5 December (Krampusnacht; "Krampus Night"), immediately before the Feast of St. Nicholas on 6 December.
These characters act as a foil to the benevolent Christmas gift-bringer, threatening to thrash or abduct disobedient children. Jacob Grimm (Deutsche Mythologie) associated this character with the pre-Christian house spirit (kobold, elf) which could be benevolent or malicious, but whose mischievous side was emphasized after Christianization.
Early representations of the gift-giver from Church history and folklore, especially Saint Nicholas, merged with the English character Father Christmas to create the mythical character known to the rest of the English-speaking world as "Santa Claus" (a phonetic derivation of "Sinterklaas" in Dutch).
The Yule cat (Icelandic: Jólakötturinn, IPA: [ˈjouːlaˌkʰœhtʏrɪn], also called Jólaköttur and Christmas cat [1]) is a huge and vicious cat from Icelandic Christmas folklore that is said to lurk in the snowy countryside during the Christmas season and eat people who do not receive new clothing before Christmas Eve. In other versions of ...