This is an old Icelandic yule-greetings card: jólasveinar come from the mountains during yule-tide to visit us — so what about our hospitality?

New Óðsmál-theories:
I have the notion that our yule-lads, jólasveinar, are our forefathers in disguise.
We might have offered a kind of pindada, i.e. given food to deceased family-members, during yule-tide, but ancestor-worship been banned by the dark-age theocracy. We, of course, carried on with it, as silly rules always tend to be broken. Then we lied:
-Oh ! The jólasveinar steal some food from the pantry during the dark nights in December, at winter-solstice.

In December we still decorate burial-sites of family-members with a lit candle, a red tulip, a branch of ever-green – worship of forefathers since olden times?
And our yule-pudding is a rice-pudding, jóla-grautur,
We might have offered to álfar (elves) and other wights too, to the great delight of the tiny (non-migrating) birds who survive the winters in Iceland.

Jólnir, Jölnir, is Óðinn during yule-tide, riding over the sky to chase away wights of darkness and cold  –  for Easter (spring deity) to come soon (lights nights and mid-night sun) –  our delight in the cold North of long dark winter-nights.

The “Santa-red” comes from the ancient knowers of medicine and healing who dressed up in “mushroom-red”.

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Same Icelandic jólasveinar (yule-lads) on Youtube