Las Vegas Sun

April 19, 2024

Dressed as Santa Claus, Langston Patterson, 77, waves at shoppers at Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza in Los Angeles on Monday, Dec. 16, 2013. Andrew Chesnut, the Bishop Walter F. Sullivan Chair in Catholic Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University, said depictions of Santa Claus as a white man came about mainly because he was a European import, a blend of the Dutch Sinterklaas and British folklore character Father Christmas, with elements of Saint Nicholas, a 4th-century Greek bishop in modern-day Turkey. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Dressed as Santa Claus, Langston Patterson, 77, waves at shoppers at Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza in Los Angeles on Monday, Dec. 16, 2013. Andrew Chesnut, the Bishop Walter F. Sullivan Chair in Catholic Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University, said depictions of Santa Claus as a white man came about mainly because he was a European import, a blend of the Dutch Sinterklaas and British folklore character Father Christmas, with elements of Saint Nicholas, a 4th-century Greek bishop in modern-day Turkey. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)