A Swedish Christmas tradition.

Before Santa, there was a krampus like figrue called "Julbocken" (Yule goat) in Sweden

In Finland they still say "Joulupukki" (Yule goat) instead of santa

Julbocken would be a neighbour or relative who would dress up as a goat outside of the house, then go to the front door to stomp and knock. When someone opened he'd ask something akin to "Is there any nice children here?"

In 1913 Alice Tegnér wrote a christmas song about the yule goat, the song was simply called "Julbocken" and translated to English it went like this:

"A Christmas when Mother was a child, she heard how somebody one evening
stood out and stomped and gave the door a bang. in that there was a Yule goat,
bearded and with a fuzzy robe, he took out a bag of small presents.

Mom she got a doll, very cute and properly dressed.
But when the goat jumps, oh what she was scared! Mother she has a brother you know,
He also got his present, and in it found a drum and trumpet.

Now the goat is old, he is probably both lame and gray,
but he can find here to us anyway, comes inside with the big bag,
looks around and asks mother: "Is this where the happy, kind children live?"

The point was both to frighten and give presents to children, the brave gets rewarded with a gift.

We don't know for sure why it was a goat. Possibly it's a reference to the pagan germanic god Thors two goats, Tanngnjost and Tanngrisner (Old Norse "teeth-barer, snarler"). It's even possible that it's older than that and goes back to before germanic paganism, when northern europe was celtic. The Yule goat might be a reference to Cernunnos who's connected to the cyclical death and rebirth. (Christmas being close to the winter solstice and the rebirth of the sun, especially Swedish christmas that has the main celebration on the 24th)

The tradition is almost completely preserved, the only difference is that instead of dressing up as the yule goat. They dress up as a stereotypical mall santa. Often times trying to alter the voice by going as dark as possible and masking the face with a fake santa mask to hide the identity of the santa actor.

The uncanny valley mask is even prefered by some due to it being a little bit scary, and a part of the overall tradition.
Santa goes to sit by the christmas tree with a sack of presents, saying the name of the child which will recieve the present. The child must by him/herself go up and take the present from the pretty scary santa.
By around the age of seven most kids realize who's behind the mask and joins the act by pretending to be scared, especially to amp up the mood for younger siblings and relatives

I have some pretty fond memories of doing this, both the frightful but exciting wait until Santa arrives (usually after dark) and the happiness, pride, and relief after mustering up the bravery to go up and receive the gift and returning to open it.