Hidden in Plain Sight: A Christmas Video for 2025

What if Saint Nicholas, Santa Claus, Krampus — even Cinderella — were carrying a forgotten Gospel story?

This Advent, I’ve released a Christmas video that uncovers clues placed in plain view in old art, folklore, and Scripture — yet overlooked for generations. These clues reveal a deeper story — one that reconnects Nicodemus, Moses, the Well-born Woman, Thunder, and the long-forgotten companions of Saint Nick.

What This Year’s Video Reveals

In my 2025 Advent reflection, I explore how Europe’s Saint Nicholas traditions preserved fragments of an older Gospel memory — clues that survived in paintings, stories, and Christmas rituals long after their original meaning was forgotten. When I first encountered several 17th-century Dutch paintings, I had to rub my eyes: was the artist deliberately pointing to Cinderella, to Simon the Magus, and to a hidden Gospel drama using nothing more than a leather shoe and two parrots —one grey, one green? These images opened the door to a deeper story — one that reshapes how we understand Saint Nicholas, Thunder, Barnabas, and the Nativity itself.

Previously for Christmas 2023, I revealed how Early Christians linked Joseph to Thunder and how he became known as Barnabas — the Barn Father.

Where the Story Goes Next

This year’s video builds on that foundation of Joseph the Barn Father — weaving together Saint Nicholas, Krampus, Cinderella, Nicodemus, Moses, and the Well-born Woman in a way that reveals the Gospel hidden beneath centuries of art and folklore. The more I followed these visual breadcrumbs, the clearer it became: the Nativity story Early Christians preserved was richer, deeper, and far more interconnected than most of us were ever taught.

As my previous 2023 Advent video uncovered Joseph as Barnabas — the Barn Father (Acts 14:12), thus this year’s reflection reveals why early believers also associated Thunder with Joseph… and why the lantern-bearing figure in so many Nativity scenes was not merely symbolic, but theological.

The result is a pair of Christmas reflections — 2023 and 2025 — that speak to one another like two sides of a single coin.

Watch the Videos

To make viewing easy, I’ve placed both Christmas reflections together on my website:
👉 Watch the Christmas videos here: https://lindavogtturner.ca/videos

• The 2023 Video: explores Joseph as Thunder, the Barn Father, and the meaning of the manger in light of ancient traditions.
• The 2025 Video: uncovers the forgotten companions of Saint Nicholas, the hidden Gospel clues in Dutch art, and how Cinderella and Simon the Magus echo an older Christian memory.

As Advent unfolds, I hope these reflections remind you that Christ has always found a way to speak — through prophets and shepherds, through art and tradition, and through the stories handed down to new and old hands following Christ’s birth into this world. None of these witnesses are accidental. They invite us to listen again, to see again, to believe again.

Whether you watch one video or both, may they stir something deep within you: a renewed hunger for truth, a curiosity for solving mystery, and a fresh confidence in the eternal life Christ came to reveal — the life breathed by the divine Pair, Thunder and Lightning, who from the beginning have given life to the Son of Man… so that all may be born again.