History of St. Nicholas

This is a great NPR interview about the reality of St. Nicholas who was a Catholic bishop from Turkey.  He actually was born wealthy and did give some of his money multiple times to poor families prior to being a bishop.  Legend (no real proof) is that on one of the visits instead of throwing it through the window (his usual method), he dropped it down the chimney.  There is a lot more in the interview.  Here and is a website explaining the history.

The history of the suit goes back to Thomas Nast's cartoon above.