Nicholas is a human toymaker who delivers toys to children around Christmas Eve. He first appeared in the cartoon show episode "Baby's First Christmas". He is based on Saint Nicholas who was himself the basis for Santa Claus, with whom Nicholas shares visual similarity to.
In the first appearance of the character, Nicholas was affected by a kiss under mistletoe that was put under an evil spell by Chlorhydris, and thus his heart was tainted so that he refused to prepare for his night of delivering toys to the children. It took a visit by the Smurfs and a tickle underneath his beard by Baby Smurf to break the evil witch's spell over his heart, though now he faced the new problem of getting his toys delivered on time. Baby Smurf cast a magic spell on Nicholas' reindeer to get them to fly so that the toys can be delivered on time.
In another episode, Nicholas' elves were sick, and thus the Smurfs helped out in the making and delivery of his toys. It is in this episode that his magic sack was accidentally swapped out for one that Scruple was carrying.