Don’t Forget the Yule Porridge!

A tomte or nisse is a mythical creature of Scandinavian pagan folklore, believed to take care for a farmer’s home and barn and protect it from misfortune, in particular at night, when the housefolk were asleep.

Tomte is the common Swedish name, derived from his place of residence and area of influence: the house lot or tomt. Nisse is the common name in Norwegian, Danish and the Scanian dialect in southernmost Sweden; it is a nickname for Nils, and its usage in folklore comes from expressions such as Nisse god dreng ("Nisse good lad/boy). The tomte was often imagined as a small, elderly man (exact size varies from a few inches to about half the height of an adult man) with a full beard, gray or white; dressed in ordinary, gray clothing, with the exception of a bright-red knitted cap. As he was thought to be skilled in illusions and able to make himself invisible, one was unlikely to get more than brief glimpses of him.

The tomte was in ancient times believed to be the "soul" of the first inhabitor of the farm. He who cleared the "tomt" (house lot). He had his dwellings in the burial mounds on the farm, hence the now somewhat archaic Swedish names tomtenisse and tomtekarl, Swedish and Norwegian names tomtegubbe, and the Finnish name tonttu-ukko (House lot man) tomtebonde (bonde=farmer) and the Norwegian Haugkall (Mound man). Thus can the tradition of giving porridge to the tomte at Christmas be a reminiscence of ancestral worship.

The tomte shares many aspects with other Scandinavian wights, such as the Swedish vättar or the Norwegian tusser. These beings are social, however, whereas the tomte is always solitary. Some synonyms of tomte include gårdbo (yard-dweller) and gardvor (yard-warden, see vörðr).  The tomte could also take a ship for his home, and was then known as a skeppstomte/skibsnisse.  In other European folklore, there are many beings similar to the tomte, such as the Scots brownie, the German Wichtelmann or the Russian domovoi. The Finnish word tonttu has been borrowed from Swedish. 

In the 1840s the farm's "nisse" became the bearer of Christmas presents in Denmark, and was then called julenisse (Yule Nisse). In 1881, a Swedish magazine published Viktor Rydberg's poem Tomten, where the tomte is alone awake in the cold Christmas night, pondering the mysteries of life and death. After that, it became more common that the tomte would bring the Christmas presents in Sweden and Norway, instead of the traditional julbock (Yule Goat). Julbok figures made of straw are still traditional Chrismas ornaments in Scandinavia.  Some people still put out a bowl of porridge for the tomte at Christmas, knowing that in the past there would be trouble if they didn’t!

Sources:

Wikipedia

http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/631501

http://www.christmasholidayseasonfacts.com/Tomte.html