Why it is that in a predominantly Protestant country a Catholic Martyr has become the Saint of the season's gifts party no one really knows for sure.
Nicolas of Myra (going from memory here, as usual can't be bothered looking it up) was not just a Catholic saint, since he was around before the Catholics and Orthodx split. He was a 4th century Eastern bishop in what we now call Turkey around whom several myths and legends have grown up. On top of the early Eastern legends, Europeans later added random bits of Nordic and Germanic elements to his story, so that he now lives at the north pole, etc. Originally his robes and hat were those of a bishop, and until the late 19th and early 20th century he was depicted as a thin gaunt man with a long beard in rather dull coloured flowing robes. Somewhere along the line Europeans were kind enough to give him a fur collar and cuffs and fur lined hat or hood for the harsh European winter. And finally the Coca Cola company for an advertising campaign in the 1930s gave him the red and white (guess why???) pyjamas we are now used to seeing him wear.
