Drawn with the pulsating rhythms and aggression of adult male sexuality, Nick is not the mythological figure of Santa Claus. Deprived of his traditional red suit, he is unveiled as a sexually mature man with a nickname meaning to steal (kidnap) or cheat. 

Traditional images of children with Santa Claus are about the children; Santa is a fixture, a prop on which the children are placed to create a Christmas memory. In Nick, the kids become the accessory; there is no emphasis on their individual identity.  Rather, it is the men who have individual character and different agendas while the children are visually bound to Nick as objects, incorporated as part of his psychology.

 Nick comically reveals these traditional Christmas images for what they are - children sitting on the laps of unfamiliar men as a part of a cultural tradition. The kids are responding to this reality with instinctive fear; the parents who placed them there were responding to the myth.