There's not much we can tell you about Christmas that you don't already know, and if you'd like to know more we'd advise checking with more authoritative sources
than the Tacky Postcard Archive.Instead, we'll explain about Santa Claus.
The Santa Claus we know today was suggested by an American poet, popularized by American news media, and pretty much re-invented from scratch by the
Coca-Cola Company.
Until 1931, "Santa Claus" was more commonly known as St. Nicholas here, or "Father Christmas" in many European countries. He was born in the Third Century, served as a bishop in the area we
now call Turkey, and was noted for his philanthropy. For several hundred years, he was usually depicted as an ELF, or as a WIZENED little gnome-like man, SKINNY as a ski pole, who wore a BLUE outfit.
In 1860, Thomas Nast (then at the New York newspaper Harper's Illustrated Weekly) decided to change St. Nick's image after reading Clement Clarke Moore's 1823 poem "A Visit From St. Nicholas," which had been
reprinted by most newspapers in the country by then. In Moore's poem, St. Nick is a tiny ELF, which makes his chimney entries more plausible.
Nast was the first to dress St. Nick in a red suit trimmed with white fur. (He later
expanded on the theme, and in 1885 was the first to suggest that St. Nick lived at the North Pole.) Nast's red Santa was still a novelty, however, and in most depictions St. Nick remained a bent, scrawny little creature in blue
until the Coca-Cola company got involved.
For a 1931 ad campaign, Coke executives decided to recreate St. Nick as a secular bon vivant who embodied the spirit of Christmas generosity. They commissioned Haddon Sundblom, a Chicago
illustrator, to produce him.
Sundblom gave St. Nicholas a pretty thorough makeover. His Santa grew about two feet taller to convey authority, gained about 120 pounds to appear good natured, and shed his modest blue suit for a
gleaming RED outfit that perfectly matched the Coca-Cola logo.
Before long, poor old St. Nick had faded to a dim memory as Coca-Cola poured billions of advertising dollars into promoting their new, improved Santa. Today the fat,
Coke-red Santa they created is one of the most widely recognized figures in the world, and Haddon Sundblom's original illustrations of him command large sums at auction.
