The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus is a 1902 children's book, written by L. Frank Baum and illustrated by Mary Cowles Clark.

The story takes place in the Forest of Burzee and nearby lands. Baum pictures the forest as a mighty and grand forest, with "big tree-trunks, standing close together, with their roots intertwining below the earth and their branches intertwining above it;" a place of "queer, gnarled limbs" and "bushy foliage" where the rare sunbeams cast "weird and curious shadows over the mosses, the lichens and the drifts of dried leaves." Among the "giant oak and fir trees" are clearings where "the grass grew green and soft as velvet." The forest is populated by fairies, ruled by an unnamed fairy queen (in later books named either Lulea or Lurline), along with nymphs, gnomes, pixies, and species of beings invented by Baum including ryls, knooks, and gigans.

At the east of the Forest of Burzee is the Laughing Valley which was empty for years until Santa Claus built his house there.

As a baby, Santa Claus is found in the Forest of Burzee by Ak: Master Woodsman of the World (a supreme immortal) and placed in the care of the lioness Shiegra, but he thereupon is adopted by the wood nymph Necile.

Upon reaching young adulthood, Claus is introduced by Ak to human society, wherein he sees war, brutality, poverty, child neglect, and child abuse. Because he cannot reside in Burzee as an adult, he settles in the nearby Laughing Valley of Hohaho where the immortals regularly assist him and Peter Knook gives him a little cat named Blinky.

In the Laughing Valley, Claus becomes known for kindness toward children. On one occasion, his neighbors' son Weekum visits him. Having made an image of Blinky to pass the time, Claus presents him with the finished carving, calling it a "toy". Soon, the immortals begin assisting him in the production of other carvings: the Ryls coloring the toys with their infinite paint pots (the first toy was not colored). When he makes a clay figure reminiscent of Necile, he proclaims it a "dolly" to evade naming Necile to the children ("doll" results when children shorten the name). Claus presents the first one to Bessie Blithesome, a local noblewoman, after consulting with Necile and the queen of the fairies about whether he should give toys to wealthy children. Later dolls resemble Bessie herself and, later still, infant girls.

The awgwas, evil beings who can turn invisible, steal the toys that Claus is giving to the children because the toys are preventing the children from misbehaving. This leads to Claus making his journeys by night and descending through chimneys when he is unable to enter the locked doors. The awgwas nonetheless prevent so many of Claus' deliveries that Ak declares war upon them after failing to get them to cease their attacks. With the aid of the Asiatic dragons, the three-eyed giants of Tartary, the goozzle-goblins, and the black demons from Patalonia, the awgwas believe their might superior to that of the immortals as they fight them in the war. The awgwas and their allies are destroyed by their opponents with Ak killing the awgwa king while the remaining giants of Tartary retreat. Claus is not present for any of the battle. When it is concluded, Ak tells him that "the awgwas have perished".

As his journeys continue, Claus is aided by two deer named Glossie and Flossie, who pull his sleigh full of toys. With their aid, he reaches the dominions of the gnome king, who wants toys for his children, but trades a string of sleigh bells for each toy given by Claus. In restriction of the deer's service to a single day annually, their supervisor Wil Knook decides upon Christmas Eve, two weeks away from the hearing, believing this will mean a year without taking the reindeer from their homes; but the fairies retrieve the toys the aaqwgwas stole and bring them to Claus, allowing Claus's first Christmas to proceed in spite of Wil. As Claus continues giving gifts, he earns the title "Santa" ("Saint" in most Romance languages).