In the first part, we saw the first two characteristics about Santa, being
happy, generous and being very large of stomach. (bowlful of jelly) That poem
was written in 1822. The drawing below was made 40 years later, and shows Saint
Nicholas as not only being both of those, but here's the white beard, too. He
is still generous, though this time it is to soldiers away from home in battle.
Thomas Nast “invented” the image popularly recognized as Santa Claus. Nast first
drew Santa Claus for the 1862 Christmas season Harper’s Weekly cover
and center-fold illustration to memorialize the family sacrifices of the
Union during the early and, for the north, darkest days of the Civil War.
Nast’s Santa appeared as a kindly figure representing Christmas, the holiday
celebrating the birth of Christ. His use of Santa Claus was melancholy, sad
for the faltering Union war effort in which Nast so fervently believed, and
sad for the separation of soldiers and families.
When Nast created his image
of Santa Claus he was drawing on his native German tradition of Saint
Nicholas, a fourth century bishop known for his kindness and generosity. In
the German Christian tradition December 6 was (and is) Saint Nicholas day, a
festival day honoring Saint Nicholas and a day of gift giving.
Nast combined
this tradition of Saint Nicholas with other German folk traditions of elves
to draw his Santa in 1862. The claim that Nast “invented” Santa Claus in 1862
is thus accurate, but the assertion overlooks the centuries-long antecedents
to his invention.
Santa Claus thrived thereafter in American culture both
Christian and secular. During the Civil War, Christmas was a traditional
festival celebration in the United States, although not yet a holiday. In
Nast’s time Christmas was not a day when offices or factories closed; but the
development of Christmas as a holiday and the use of Santa Claus as a secular
symbol of gift giving removed from its Christian antecedents occurred during
Nast’s lifetime.
The modern American celebration of Christmas, with its
commercialized gift exchanges, developed in cities, led by New York, after
1880.
Well, we have him happy. We have him jolly and round. We have the facial
features that also came out in the movie "Miracle on 34th Street" done in
1940. But where did the red fur-lined outfit come from?
We don't really know! It was known in 1927, as The New York Times
reported on 27 November 1927:
A standardized Santa Claus appears to New York children.
Height, weight, stature are almost exactly standardized, as
are the red garments, the hood and the white whiskers. The
pack full of toys, ruddy cheeks and nose, bushy eyebrows and a
jolly, paunchy effect are also inevitable parts of the
requisite make-up.
Standardized
in 1927, at least for the city of New York. So it was NOT created by the
Coca-Cola company. But, they sure made this version spread fast!
At the beginning of the 1930s, the Coca-Cola company
was looking for ways to increase sales
during winter, a slow time of year for the soft drink market.
They turned to a commercial illustrator named Haddon Sundblom, who created a series of memorable drawings that
associated the figure of a larger than life, red-and-white garbed
Santa Claus with Coca-Cola.
Coke's annual advertisements --
featuring Sundblom-drawn Santas holding bottles of Coca-Cola,
drinking Coca-Cola, receiving Coca-Cola as gifts, and especially
enjoying Coca-Cola -- became a perennial
Christmastime feature which helped spur Coca-Cola sales throughout
the winter (and produced the bonus effect of appealing quite
strongly to children, an important segment of the soft drink
market). They use polar bears today! The success of this advertising campaign
helped standardize the modern Santa Claus, decking him out in a red-and-white suit,
which were also the company colors.
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