Father Christmas Cartoon Character Sketch

Father Christmas really isn’t the “English Santa”, he seems from my reading to be more of a pagan “descendent" of Odin. The symbol of midwinter (Winter Solstice).

Santa is based on Saint Nicholas, via the Dutch’s name for him — “Sinter Klass”.

Christmas also used to be a long, rowdy drinking festival (Saturnalia, Yule) like Halloween used to be. Traditions for both holidays were introduced relatively recently to try and quench the insanity. I guess it worked.