Santa Claus (The Nightmare Before Christmas)

Santa Claus (or Sandy Claws as Jack Skellington calls him) is one of the central characters of Tim Burton's 1993 stop-motion Disney film The Nightmare Before Christmas. He is a joyful man that delivers gifts to children in the Real World, and is later kidnapped by Oogie's minions at Jack's behest, preventing him from doing his job.
==Background==
===Personality===
Santa seems to usually have a smile on his face: as is to be expected, he's jolly, caring, and, good with children. He is fair and thoughtful, and values his job making Christmas perfect for children worldwide highly.
Upon his rescue, Santa gruffly informs Jack that Christmas can still be saved; while thankful for being saved from Oogie, he scolds Jack for trying to take over a holiday that was never his to lead from the start, and refers to Sally, the first person to try and rescue Santa and the only person not to go along with Jack's plan, as "the only one who makes any sense around this insane asylum." He did, however, demonstrate a measure of compassion on his way out, showing no hard feelings by giving Halloween Town a taste of Christmas in the form of snow.
===Physical appearance===
Santa Claus is a plump man dressed in a faded red coat, lined with white fur and closed with a black belt. His small hands are covered by black gloves that also have white fur lining. His feet and legs, though usually hidden by his coat, are even smaller than his hands, and covered by black boots. He wears a long, thin stocking cap, colored red and lined with white fur, with a white fur ball on its end. Santa has white hair and eyebrows, and a very long, thick beard that nearly reaches the floor. His cheeks and bulbous nose are faintly pink, as are his lips.
==Appearances==
===The Nightmare Before Christmas===
This incarnation of Santa Claus originally appeared in the 1993 movie The Nightmare Before Christmas. In the movie, Jack orders Lock, Shock, and Barrel to kidnap Santa Claus so that Jack can take over Christmas and "improve" it his way. While Jack instructs the trio of trick or treaters to make Santa comfortable, they instead take him to Oogie Boogie, who intends to imprison and kill him. Sally, who doesn't like Jack's idea of taking over Christmas, is worried about Santa Claus and wants to save him, but when she finds him, she is also captured by Oogie. Later, Jack hurries back to Halloween Town to save Santa and Sally. When Jack defeats Oogie Boogie and frees the two, Santa squashes the final bug comprising Oogie's body under his boot. Jack then apologizes to Santa, who scolds Jack for his actions and leaves to fix Christmas. He flies around the world and delivers real presents to all the children. He and Jack also wish each other Merry Christmas and Happy Halloween as Santa brings snow to Halloween Town.
===Other appearances===
An emoticon version of Santa Claus appears in the As Told by Emoji retelling of The Nightmare Before Christmas.
==Video games==
===Kingdom Hearts II===
Santa Claus appears as a character in the Halloween Town world of Kingdom Hearts II. He is the leader of Christmas Town and is frequently asked questions about Christmas by Jack Skellington. At one point, he also tells Jack not to meddle in things like "last time" within earshot of Sora and his friends, causing Jack to explain it was a long story.
During Sora's first visit to Halloween Town, he is kidnapped by Oogie Boogie at Maleficent's request, who had intended to turn Santa into a Heartless. When Santa is also captured, Sally saves Santa from Oogie Boogie. When Sora defeats Oogie Boogie, Santa tells Jack that he should concentrate on Halloween, and Santa should concentrate on Christmas. He also tells Sora to believe that he will meet Riku again.
During Sora's second visit, Santa's presents get stolen by Dr. Finkelstein's Experiment. He helps Jack make decoy presents to attract the Experiment, from which Jack and company hide in to ambush and defeat the Experiment. Santa Claus decides to give Jack a taste of what it's like to deliver Christmas presents. When Jack finishes delivering presents, Santa takes back his sleigh and brings forth beautiful snow drops as a present to those in Halloween Town.
==Gallery==
==Trivia==
*Vincent Price was orginally offered to voice Santa. However, following the death of his third wife, Coral Browne in 1991, his health had declined, thus making him too frail to give a good performance, so he was rejected. The next choice for the role was Don Ameche, who proved to be hard to work with. They then tried James Earl Jones, but when Danny Elfman told him that he had written the part specifically for him, Jones angrily yelled "You don't know me!" and thus, he turned the role down. So the role ended up being cast to local San Francisco actor Edward Ivory, to the regret of Henry Selick.
==External links==
*
<tabber>
|-|The Nightmare Before Christmas=
|-|Kingdom Hearts=
|-|Disney Tsum Tsum=
</tabber>
es:Santa Claus (The Nightmare Before Christmas)
Category:Characters
Category:The Nightmare Before Christmas characters
Category:Males
Category:Heroes
Category:Magic Users
Category:Kingdom Hearts characters
Category:Businesspeople
Category:Animated characters
Category:Holiday Figures
Category:Touchstone characters
Category:Adults
Category:Disney Crossy Road characters
Category:Elderly characters
Category:Characters who fly
Category:Characters in video games
Category:Characters in Disney parks
Category:Characters who narrate the story
Category:Immortal
Category:Disney characters
Category:Disney Magic Kingdoms characters