quality:corruption
Germanic paganism, Wodan, and Christianization

Prior to Christianization, the Germanic peoples (including the English) celebrated a midwinter event called Yule (Old English geola or giuli). With the Christianization of Germanic Europe, numerous traditions were absorbed from Yuletide celebrations into modern Christmas, such as the Wild Hunt, frequently attested as being led by the god Odin (Wodan), bearing (among many names) the names Jólnir, meaning "Yule figure", and Langbarðr, meaning "long-beard", in Old Norse.

Wodan's role during the Yuletide period has been theorized as having influenced concepts of St. Nicholas and Santa Claus in a variety of facets, including his long white beard and his gray horse for nightly rides (compare Odin's horse Sleipnir) or his reindeer in North American tradition. Folklorist Margaret Baker maintains that "the appearance of Santa Claus or Father Christmas, whose day is the 25th of December, owes much to Odin, the old blue-hooded, cloaked, white-bearded Giftbringer of the north, who rode the midwinter sky on his eight-footed steed Sleipnir, visiting his people with gifts. Odin, transformed into Father Christmas, then Santa Claus, prospered with St Nicholas and the Christchild, became a leading player on the Christmas stage."

In northern Europe, the Yule goat was an earlier bearer of gifts, which has to some degree become conflated with Santa Claus, for instance in the Finnish Joulupukki tradition.