Santa Claus comes from Germanic legends. He punished naughty children with the knout. Germanic legends also say at the winter solstice the god Woden, leader of the wild hunt, together with Mother Hulda rides through the air to punish people for their bad deeds.
The suit was originally green.
Megyn Kelly is correct.
Wrong again, Bob !
1) The german legends you refering to are about
Saint Nicholas of Myra, who
was born in the city of Patara, in the Lycia Province wich is located in the south east of Turkey
and died in Myra, in the region of Antalya, once again in the south east of Turkey
2) Saint Nicholas does not punish naughty kids. He rewards good kids. Zwarte Piet punishes naughty kids.
3) I don't know where you found those picture but Saint Nicholas' costume has never been green. It' white and red, it's a bishop robe 'cause he was Bishop of Myra
All my family comes from Lorraine, on the East of France, near the german border, in this region people celebrate Saint Nicholas. As a kid I've celebrated Saint Nicholas so I think I know what I'm talking about when I speak about St Nicholas, at least better than most americans (the same way that you americans actually celebrate halloween and us french don't so I guess it wouldn't be wise from me to pretend that I know Halloween better than you...)
The fact is when christianism spread out all over Europe, the Church actually adapted christianism to the patterns of old pagan religions. This is why christmas is celebrated very close to the Winter Solstice 'cause there used to be a pagan feast for the winter solstice, the Church put Christmas instead so that people wouldn't be too confused...
So maybe before Saint Nicholas there used to be, in pagan germany, a legend about a green coated old man but it wasn't St Nicholas.
