Who was the first person\peope to "invent" Santa Clause?

Answer 1

Saint Nicholas

I'd imagine

Answer 2

In a Marx Brothers movie ("A Night At The Opera"?) Groucho is reviewing a contract and mentions the "sanity clause", and Harpo replies:"You can't a fool me, there aint a no Sanaty Clause!"

Answer 3

The first Europeans to arrive in the New World brought St. Nicholas. Vikings dedicated their cathedral to him in Greenland. On his first voyage, Columbus named a Haitian port for St. Nicholas on December 6, 1492. In Florida, Spaniards named an early settlement St. Nicholas Ferry, now known as Jacksonville. However, St. Nicholas had a difficult time during the 16th century Protestant Reformation which took a dim view of saints. Even though both reformers and counter-reformers tried to stamp out St. Nicholas-related customs, they had very little long-term success; only in England were the religious folk traditions of Christmas permanently altered. (It is ironic that fervent Puritan Christians began what turned into a trend to a more secular Christmas observance.) Because the common people so loved St. Nicholas, he survived on the European continent as people continued to place nuts, apples, and sweets in shoes left beside beds, on windowsills, or before the hearth.

Dutch family waiting for Sinterklaas
"New Year's Hymn to St. Nicholas," colonial Dutch life, Albany, NY. Harper's New Monthly Magazine, March 1881
St. Nicholas Center Collection
Colonists came to America after the Reformation in the 1500s. They were primarily Puritans and other Protestant reformers who did not bring Nicholas traditions to the New World. What about the Dutch? Although it is nearly universally reported that the Dutch did bring St. Nicholas to New Amsterdam, scholars find limited evidence of such traditions in Dutch New Netherland. Colonial Germans in Pennsylvania held the feast of St. Nicholas, and several accounts do have St. Nicholas visiting New York Dutch on New Years' Eve. Patriots formed the Sons of St. Nicholas in 1773, not to honor Bishop Nicholas, but rather as a non-British symbol to counter the English St. George societies. This St. Nicholas society was similar to the Sons of St. Tammany in Philadelphia. Not exactly St. Nicholas, the children's gift-giver.

Answer 4

I heard once that coka cola invented this who santa clause thing from the story of St Nick as a marketing scheme. If it's true, it's a damn good marketing scheme.

Answer 5

Father Christmas figures have been seen in many Northern European pre-Christian myths, so to say what myth he originated from is difficult and I've heard many takes.

What we know as Santa Claus has progressed from those myths. Like mosty myths the origin is impossible to say because myths change over time.

Answer 6

no-one invented him.
he was a saint named nicholas.
and he went around the town giving toys to little children on dec25. but the whole reindeers and elf thing...i have no clue =)

Answer 7

some say it goes back to odin and the wild hunt, and so predates christianity

Answer 8

TIM ALLEN