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In advance of Yule I shall just remind people that although in the past I pointed out that Odin's epithet JÓLFAÐR "yule father" sounds like Father Christmas, that is in fact just a coincidence. Odin was indeed the principle god of the Yule festival, but he is not related to Santa Claus.

Father Christmas and Santa Claus are two separate figures who got merged together recently. The latter was mainly in West Germanic speaking continental Europe and was based on Saint Nicolas, while the former was in France and the British Isles and is literally a personification of Christmas itself. Neither existed in Scandinavia or Iceland until recently. The Nordic equivalent was a goat and it is perhaps of relevance that early English depictions of Father Christmas depict him riding on a goat so there may be a connection between the Julbok and Father Christmas but maybe not.

The reindeer and North pole stuff is all modern invention from USA so any resemblance to Odin is coincidence.

Also, as a heathen father, I don't consider it pious to tell my children that the fat purveyor of plastic toys is our god. It isn't. I also refrain from referring to the small pointy hatted servants as "elves" since in our religion this term is reserved for honoured ancestral spirits. I prefer to say gnome so as to avoid confusion. The Nordic countries call them nisse but this may derive from a term meaning "ancestor" which raises similar concerns.

A Yuletide warning for brainy young friends. Always direct your reading and learning towards the ultimate spiritual purpose. It is right for a young man so inclined to immerse himself in philosophy, theology and the world of ideas only if he ultimately manifests those ideas into a coherent way of being. The intellectually gifted can fall victim to a type of vanity that transforms them into wordcels incapable of living out the ideas they have studied. Theories become obstructions to the modes of being they present and the victims use them as masks to obscure their failure.

“All too often people forget that spirituality is essentially a way of life and that its measure does not consist of notions, theories, and ideas that have been stored in one’s head. Spirituality is actually what has been successfully actualized and translated into a sense of superiority which is experienced inside by the soul, and a noble demeanor, which is expressed in the body.” Evola

Zoroastrian magi

The Folkton Drums
These three carved chalk cylinders were found placed behind the head and hips of a child's skeleton in a round barrow (burial mound).
The elaborate designs are similar to the decoration on some Late Neolithic and Beaker pottery, as well as with the engraved patterns on Early Bronze Age sheet goldwork. The 'drums' are unique, and their use unknown.
Later Neolithic/Copper Age, about 2500-2000 BC
Folkton, North Yorkshire, England

I think that the way the gods are present in the world, the way they reveal themselves, is best explained by the representations in Salin Style I and II. If you spend a long time looking at such art, trying to decipher the hidden figures, faces and animals, then you will acquire the eye that is needed. Pictures speak more than words.

Helmaberandz, Hlewedafrawjaz,
Fangiz, Brūnaz, Frōdaz, Wakraz,
Hwatamōdaz, Hariblindijandz