Santa Claus much to Odin, the old blue-hooded, cloaked, white-bearded Giftbringer of the north, who rode the midwinter sky on his eight-footed steed Sleipnir, visiting his people with gifts. […] Odin, transformed into Father Christmas, then Santa Claus, prospered with St Nicholas and the Christchild, became a leading player on the Christmas stage." In Finland Santa Claus is called Joulupukki (direct translation 'Christmas Goat'). Pre-modern representations of the gift-giver from Church history and folklore, notably St Nicholas (known in Dutch as Sinterklaas), merged with the English character Father Christmas to create the character known to Americans and the rest of the English-speaking
Santa Claus (1959 film) video releases contain several awkward splices and the color reproduction is poor. Santa Claus (1959 film) Santa Claus (sometimes known as "Santa Claus vs. the Devil") is a 1959 Mexican fantasy film directed by Rene Cardona and co-written with Adolfo Torres Portillo. In the film, Santa works in outer space and does battle with a demon sent to Earth by Lucifer to ruin Christmas by killing Santa and "making all the children of the Earth do evil." A dubbed and slightly edited English language version was produced for U.S. release in 1960 under the direction of Ken Smith. It was