Santa Claus is a straight copy of Sinterklaas. Even Wikipedia says so. Also, I don't know any Dutch kids that believe in Santa Claus but a great many believe in Sinterklaas. Santa is not a gift giver here at all. If there are gifts at Christmas (a minority) then it's given by family, not by Santa.

[–] Successful_Try543@feddit.org 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

In Germany, Saint Nicolaus is filling boots of the nice kids with nuts, oranges and chocolate (or alike) on the morning of December 6th and also doesn't bring the Christmas gifts.
The Weihnachtsmann (or Santa Claus), however, afaIk, was imported from the US in the last century, where it had evolved from the St. Nicolaus figure.
As I'm from a 'Chist child' family, I don't know if the Weihnachtsmann actually "brings" the presents in the more northern parts.

[–] InFerNo@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 day ago

So many mandarines/clementines on Sinterklaas 😭

[–] samus12345@lemm.ee 5 points 2 days ago

I always found the image of the Christ child lugging all the gifts around funny as an American who grew up in Germany.