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With Christmas rapidly approaching, it seemed only fitting that today's life of the week episode

should explore an individual who's foremost

in many people's thoughts, Father Christmas, or if you prefer, Santa Claus. During which historical

era did he first emerge? When did he open a workshop at the North Pole?

And what is the historical difference between Father Christmas and Santa?

To discover the answer to all these questions and more,

Matt Elton caught up with historian Thomas Rees Smith.

So in this instalment of our Life of the Week series,

we're going to be doing something slightly different and exploring the life and I suppose the cultural afterlife of one of the

world's most famous, but perhaps most elusive characters, and that's Father Christmas or

Santa Claus. And I suspect, Tom, we're going to get into some of the dichotomies and the

complications of those two different names as we go.

But to kick us off, what sort of place and time do we need to head to to discover the origins

...