Beyond Santa: Some of the world's other Christmas gift-bringers

On Christmas Eve, children across Newfoundland and Labrador will fall asleep hoping for a visit from a right jolly old elf.

But Santa is just one member of a global family of winter gift-givers that includes angels, fairies, human-sized crows, and even a pooping Yule log.

Santa is descended from the white-bearded St. Nicholas, who still delivers gifts to children in many parts of the world on St. Nicholas's Day, Dec. 6.

During the Protestant Reformation, theologians opposed celebrations like St. Nicholas's Day on the grounds that the veneration of saints was Catholic idolatry. It was supposedly Martin Luther himself who advocated to transfer the custom of gift-giving to Christmas Eve and the credit for the gifts to Jesus, the Christkindl (Christ-child). 

The Christkindl is no longer always imagined as a young Jesus. In some places, this gift-bringer evolved into a distinct character: a female angel with flowing blond locks. 

Instead of writing to Santa, Austrian children send their Christmas letters to her, either leaving them on the windowsill to be taken up to heaven or by the more earthly method of mailing them to a special post office in the town of Christkindl, Austria.

Christkindl isn't the only female gift-bringer. The Franche-Comté region of France is home to Tante Arie, a white-robed lady whose features shine with kindness. Daughter of the last druid of the Jura Mountains, or possibly a benevolent former countess of the district, she was granted eternal life to continue to care for her people. 

On Christmas Eve, she travels the countryside on her little donkey Marion, leaving treats in the shoes of children who've been good and a dunce cap or switch in the shoes of those who've been naughty.

Before the communist revolution in 1917, Russian children received their Christmas gifts from an old woman they fondly called Babushka, meaning "granny." 

Like La Befana, Italy's Christmas witch, Babushka declined the opportunity to accompany the Three Magi to Bethlehem.

Regretting her decision, she set out to find the baby Jesus on her own, and she's searching still, leaving gifts for any children she meets along the way. 

Under the Soviets, Babushka, St. Nicholas and other gift-givers with ties to religion were suppressed and replaced with Ded Moroz (Grandfather Frost), a secular figure who delivers gifts with his granddaughter Snegurochka (Snow Maiden) on New Year's Day. 

Gift-giving goats and gnomes

Midwinter gifts can also be delivered by animals, gnomes and even inanimate objects. 

Julebukking (Yule goat-ing) was a Scandinavian house-visiting tradition similar to mummering. Dressed in animal skins and straw masks, neighbours would go door-to-door dancing, singing and demanding to be fed. 

By the end of the nineteenth century, the tables had turned, and the Yule goat was now bringing gifts instead of demanding them.

A Swedish song written by Alice Tegnér in 1913 described the tradition as it existed when her mother was a child:

In there stepped a Yule goat,

Bearded with a shaggy coat,

And he took small packages

Out of his big tote.

Today, instead of delivering presents itself, the Yule goat more often pulls a sleigh for another gift-bringer. 

Tomtar (Swedish) and Nisser (Norwegian/Danish) are gnomes that live under floorboards and in haylofts. They can be mischievous, overturning buckets of milk or braiding together the tails of cows. But, if well treated, they become helpful guardians who might even pitch in now and then with the chores.

A household's gnome was customarily treated to a bowl of porridge the night before Christmas, and, over time, he began to be credited with leaving Christmas gifts for the family's children.

Now, it's the Jultomte or Julnisse, a human-sized blend of traditional Scandinavian gnomes and Santa Claus, who visits to dole out presents on Christmas Eve.

Murders and beatings

One of the spookier Christmas gift-givers is a recent invention.

Warmun, a Gija Aboriginal community in Western Australia, receives an annual visit from a murder of giant crows. 

Based on a figure from the Dreamtime — when, according to Aboriginal belief, the world was created — Wangkarnal crows arrive at the Ngalangangpum School Christmas party by four-wheel drive or helicopter. There, they distribute gifts to the terrified and delighted children.

The tradition, which blends Indigenous culture with imported religion, was established sometime after the school opened in the 1970s and kicks off a summer Christmas celebration that includes live music, traditional dancing and barbecue.

But, perhaps the strangest Christmas gift-bringer of them all is the Tió de Nadal (Christmas log), also called the Caga Tió (poop log). 

The Tió de Nadal is a small, hollow log with stubby stick legs and a smiling face painted on one end. Starting on Dec. 8 — the Feast of the Immaculate Conception — children in Barcelona and other parts of Catalonia, Spain, feed their household's Tió de Nadal nuts and fruit each night.

Finally, on Christmas Eve, their loving care turns to violence as they beat the log with sticks and order it to poop presents while singing:

Poop log,

Log of Christmas,

Don't poop herrings,

Which are too salty.

Poop turróns (nougat candy),

Which are more tasty!

The history of the custom is murky, but it shares its quirky theme with the Catalan tradition of placing a Caganer, a figurine of a defecating man, in the nativity scene.

The folklore of Christmas gift-givers shows how customs transform under the influence of changing religious beliefs and political administrations.

Still, the origins of most remain a mystery, a magical blend of local and global inspirations that share a common goal of bringing light to the darkness.

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