He is the most famous celebrity in the world. He is instantly welcomed from China to Peru. Millions who would not recognise the Queen on a postage stamp, and have no knowledge of the Pope or the President, recognise him at once.

And this is odd, for he is 1,800-years old. He was born at Antalya in southern Turkey in the fourth century AD. The earliest frescoes depict him as a gaunt man with a straggly beard who looks as though he has escaped from a painting by El Greco. His ancestors are the Germanic god Odin, and even farther back, the Italian agricultural pioneer, Saturn. Dutch traders carried him as an illegal immigrant to the United States, and left him their nautical cap and a pipe. They also made him fat. Down the centuries he has changed Odin's spear for a staff, and his white horse, Sleipnir, for reindeer. He has relocated to the North Pole, Lapland, or the northernmost point of whichever Nordic country claims him as its resident.

His critics (for there are some) condemn him for commercialism, materialism, cheap show business, and deception of children, who might grow up disillusioned. He has been described as a pagan goblin. And yet, from his hagiography, St Nicholas of Myra (Santa Claus, Father Christmas) has a good track record. He might have reconstituted the body pieces of a little boy who had been chopped up and salted by a cannibal. He may have secretly presented a destitute girl with a dowry.

And this is his night. There is no need for children to believe all his legend. His old red-and-white lie of benevolence, generosity and love of children is for all seasons, and especially this one.