By far the best selling collectible character of all times, however, was a real life saint whose feast day is celebrated tomorrow, December 6.

I'm speaking, of course, about St. Nicholas, aka Santa Claus, Sinter Klaus, Pere Noel and Kris Kringle.
Nicholas was the bishop of a city in ancient Turkey all the way back in the 4th Century. The three miracles that helped raise him to sainthood involved saving men from political persecution, women from poverty and prostitution, and children from being slaughtered.
You gotta love a guy who does stuff like that, and everybody did love St. Nick. In fact, he became so popular that folks changed their family names to the likes of Nicholas, Nichols, Nicholson and Klaus.
The 19th Century New York media — Washington Irving, Clement Moore and Thomas Nast, among others — recognized St. Nicholas's popular star quality. They put a few pounds on him, dressed him up in a red suit, gave him a pipe and some reindeer, and told him to be jolly.
The Santa Claus image we embrace today is a uniquely American one, invented in the 19th Century by the New York literary establishment. He first appeared in Washington Irving's "Knickerbocker's History of New York" (1809) as a character based on the Dutch Sinter Klaus (Saint Nicholas).
That story not only gave Santa Claus his name, but it forever changed the image of the gaunt bishop in robes and miter, who had been a 4th Century holy man in Asia Minor, to a stout, pipe-smoking clown of a fellow in baggy pants.
In 1823 a poem that the Manhattan minister, Clement Moore, had written for his children first appeared in print in the Troy New York Sentinel. "An Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas" gave Santa his red suit, his jolliness and his reindeer.
The real American Santa image-maker, however, was the same man who created the Democratic donkey and the Republican elephant, the German immigrant illustrator, Thomas Nast. His drawings of Santa in Harper's Weekly from 1863-1886 are forever etched in the American imagination.
"Belsnickle," a word meaning "Good St. Nicholas," is a term used for a figure of Santa Claus holding a tree or branch in his folded arms. Santa is usually not smiling on a belsnickle, and the branch was originally meant as a switch for punishing naughty children.
Belsnickles are among the most popular old-fashioned Santa images, and because it is such a compact image it is often seen as a Christmas ornament or light bulb.
Santa stands for thinking about others, hoping they get everything they need, and wishing their dreams will come true — all that and he makes you smile too.
What a guy!
—Arthur Schwerdt, a certified appraiser, is co-owner of The August Farmhouse Antiques, and author of “The Antique Story Book: Finding the Real Value of Old Things. €”