Because this question comes up every holiday season, I thought I’d help everyone out with a handy chart. Thanks to Ryan Richardson for making it look good. See also:
Apparently, this bugs me every year.
(no date)
Rachel Held Evans
Ded Moroz (Grandpa Frost) is a traditional gift-bearing Slavic character who makes his appearance during the New Year celebrations with a big goody bag full of presents for kids. Yet, he isn’t the only one who has such a generous habit.
One of the most famous of Father Frost’s colleagues is Santa Claus, with his fur-trimmed red jacket, white-cuffed pants, and a matching cap. His outfit isn’t as old as one might think; it stems from Coca-Cola Christmas advertising, which popularised this image in the 1930s.
In Finland, this character is better known as Joulupukki.
In the Netherlands, he appears under the alias of Sinterklaas.
The woods of legendary Lapland in northernmost Sweden and Norway are home to Julenisse, a hunch-backed little old man with a potato-shaped nose. Southern Norway and Denmark can boast a similar gift-delivering spirit of Christmas called Tomte Gnome.
France has two Santa Clauses for good and bad kids respectively. The good one, called Père Noël, carries a basketful of presents, whilst the strict one, named Père Chalande, wears a fur cap and a warm travel cloak and whips naughty children.
The Italian Father Christmas is called Babbo Natale.
The Basques call their Christmas wizard Olentzero. He wears homespun clothes and carries around a bottle of good Spanish wine.
The Romanians call him Mos Craciun.
The Tatar Santa Claus, Kysh Babai, goes around with a relative of Snegurochka (Snow Maiden) named Kar-Kyzy.
The Muslim Santa Claus is an old man in a red cap, a green robe strewn with flowers, and a matching green scarf. His name is Hızır-İlyas and he brings presents in early May.
17 December 2012
Voice of Russia World Service
Mireille Mathieu sings Les anges dans nos campagnes (The Angels in Our Fields), the original French version of Angels We Have Heard on High… you heard me right, the Anglos ripped it from the French… this time, the French are right. By the way, Mme Mathieu is a very strong Catholic Christian, but she doesn’t make a big show of it (which means that she’s for real, unlike the loud sorts (you know who they are)).
Vox Angeli sings Noël Blanc (White Christmas)… in this one, the Frogs rip one from the Anglos! Turnaround is fair-play…
Il est né le Divin Enfant sung by les Petits Chanteurs à la Croix de Bois
Trois anges sont venus ce soir, composed by Augusta Mary Anne Holmès (1845-1903) (a French composer of Irish heritage, descended from one of the “Wild Geese”, no doubt), sung by Marie-Michèle Desrosiers.
Have a most wonderful holiday and Holy Day… ours is on the way, thirteen days on. I’ll tell you a secret… if you stop by, there’s always room for one more…
BMD
Voices from Russia 
12 November 2014. A View From the East… Spying on Santa (Luo Jie/China Daily)
Tags: Barack Obama, cartoons, celebration of Christmas, celebrations, China Daily, Chinese, Christmas, Christmas and holiday season, Christmas cake, Christmas celebrations, Christmas customs, editorial cartoons, epiphany celebration, Father Christmas, Feast of the Nativity, Happy Holidays, Holiday, holiday time, holidays, Holidays and Observances, Luo Jie, Merry Christmas, National Security Agency, Nativity, NSA, political commentary, politics, Russian holidays, Santa, Santa Claus, United States, USA, Western Christmas
Spying on Santa
Luo Jie
2013
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Yeah… it’s almost American Christmas season… that is, from American Thanksgiving to Catholic Christmas on 25 December. Unlike trad Christians in the Catholic, Orthodox, and Reformation Churches, Anglo Americans have a holiday season that PRECEDES the holiday (I shit you not). There ain’t no “Twelve Days of Christmas”… there’s four weeks of utter commercialised madness starting with Black Friday (the Black Mass of this “holiday”)… then, Catholic Christmas… and all Anglo Americans collapse in a stupor, glad that the “holiday season” is over for another year. There’s not even a New Year’s celebration of any note! It’s not like the Russian holiday of New Year’s-Christmas-Epiphany… nineteen days of partying hearty and fun (including jumping in an ice hole on Epiphany… no lie, I’ve done it… don’t knock it until you’ve tried it). It has none of the hearty exuberance of “c’était un Noël au Québec” (grand-père has to come and give the family bénédiction for the coming year first)… NOBODY decorates for the season “comme le font les québécois” (must be that Caribou that they drink… half moonshine and half homemade wine). It isn’t the Sicilian midnight feast after Christmas Mass… nor is it the homely joy of an English Christmas Cake… it’s a deadening exercise… so much so that I wonder why they even engage in it.
Keep your wits about you and stay out of the malls from Black Thursday until Catholic Christmas. Then… CELEBRATE… feast, feast, feast, like real men and women and kids should. Pass me the roast beast, please… I WILL take seconds, if you will.
BMD