Saint Nicholas was a real, historical person.
But he didn’t live in some snowy Northern place like the North Pole or Scandinavia. And he probably wasn’t fair-skinned with ruddy cheeks.
He lived in the town of Myra – on the Southern Coast of Turkey – in the fourth century (it was then part of Greece). So he likely had an olive-colored, Mediterranean complexion:
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The real St. Nick came from a wealthy family, and his parents died in an epidemic when he was young. Nick used his large inheritance to help the poor.