In Switzerland Santa has a helper

This weekend a red-cloaked figure with a white woolly beard and sack of presents has been paying calls on children across Switzerland.
This is not the Santa Claus known to English-speaking countries but the Swiss version – who is normally accompanied by a strange-looking individual with a blacked out face.
The Swiss Father Christmas was based on Saint Nicholas, whose feast day was celebrated on Saturday – his Swiss German name, Samichlaus, alludes to that. But the origins of his sinister companion are less easy to make out.

Known as Schmutzli in the German part of the country and Père Fouettard (from "whip") in French, Samichlaus's alter ego usually carries a broom of twigs for administering punishment to children whose behaviour throughout the year has not been up to scratch.

Over the years though, and despite retaining his foreboding appearance, Schmutzli has evolved into a more benign figure.

At a Samichlaus parade in Bern's old town on the last Saturday of November he helped hand out gifts of gingerbread and mandarins to the assembled hordes.

There is evidence though that in more conservative parts of the country the traditional Schmutzli is still alive and well.

Lucerne resident Margareta Simons reports that at a St Nicholas gathering there a group of teenage Schmutzlis started chasing some of the children. When they caught a boy, they thrashed him with a broomstick.

"It was quite frightening," she said. "Later they were roaming round the district, knocking their broomsticks on the buses to scare the children inside."
Origins