A Brief History of Santa

Only one more Big Sleep until Santa comes!

But this Santa guy -- just exactly who is he and where did he come from? Well, YouTuber CGPGrey (Colin Grey) has another informative and entertaining video up, and this time he's looking back at the origins of the Big Red Guy:

Colin has also helpfully provided the complete transcript of the video on his blog, if you're interested:

On the 24th of December every year children around the world put out milk and cookies in the hopes of luring a magic fat man into their home who will leave presents behind before sneaking into the house next door.

How did such an odd tradition begin?

You can pretty much blame Northern Europe, where the winter weather is cold and dark and depressing.

And the coldest and darkest and depressingest day is the Solstice on December 21st or 22nd when the sun only gives a few hours of weak light if any at all.

And if your brain gets hungry after you're finished stuffing your face with gingerbread this holiday weekend, Colin has a number of other worthwhile videos on his YouTube channel, including Coffee: The Greatest Addiction Ever; Death to Pennies; The Difference between the United Kingdom, Great Britain and England.