<P> Wodan's role during the Yuletide period has been theorized as having influenced concepts of St. Nicholas in a variety of facets, including his long white beard and his gray horse for nightly rides (compare Odin's horse Sleipnir) or his reindeer in North American tradition . Folklorist Margaret Baker maintains that "the appearance of Santa Claus or Father Christmas, whose day is the 25th of December, owes 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 ." </P> <P> In Finland they still use Joulupukki or the Christmas Goat . </P> <P> 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 world as "Santa Claus" (a phonetic derivation of "Sinterklaas"). </P> <P> In the English and later British colonies of North America, and later in the United States, British and Dutch versions of the gift - giver merged further . For example, in Washington Irving's History of New York (1809), Sinterklaas was Americanized into "Santa Claus" (a name first used in the American press in 1773) but lost his bishop's apparel, and was at first pictured as a thick - bellied Dutch sailor with a pipe in a green winter coat . Irving's book was a lampoon of the Dutch culture of New York, and much of this portrait is his joking invention . </P>

Where does the term santa claus come from
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