When Santa Claus turned RED?
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When Santa Claus turned RED?
The Santa Claus we all know and love — that big, jolly man in the red suit with a white beard — didn’t always look that way. Many people are surprised to learn that before 1931, Santa was depicted as everything from a tall gaunt man to a spooky-looking elf, he has donned a bishop’s robe and a Norse huntsman’s animal skin.
It’s widely believed that today’s Santa wears a red suit because that’s the colour associated with Coca‑Cola, but this isn’t the case. Before the Coca‑Cola Santa was even created, it was Civil War cartoonist Thomas Nast who drew Santa for 30 years for Harper’s Weekly, changing the colour of his coat from tan to the red he’s known for today.
An 1881 illustration by Thomas Nast, Merry Old Santa, featured a plump man in a red-suit, with a pipe and a rosy complexion.
However, Coca‑Cola advertising indeed played a big role in shaping the jolly character we know and love today.
The Coca-Cola Company began its Christmas advertising in the 1920s with shopping-related ads in magazines like The Saturday Evening Post. The first Santa ads used a strict-looking Claus, in the vein of Thomas Nast.
In 1931, the Coca-Cola company began placing ads in popular magazines. The company, wanted the campaign to show a wholesome Santa who was both realistic and symbolic. So Coca-Cola commissioned Michigan-born illustrator Haddon Sundblom to develop advertising images using Santa Claus — showing Santa himself, not a man dressed as Santa.
For inspiration, Sundblom turned to Clement Clark Moore’s 1822 poem “A Visit From St. Nicholas” Moore’s description of St. Nick led to an image of a warm, friendly, pleasantly plump and human Santa.
From 1931 to 1964, Coca-Cola advertising showed Santa delivering toys (and playing with them!), pausing to read a letter and enjoy a Coke, visiting with the children who stayed up to greet him, and raiding the refrigerators at several homes.
The original oil paintings Sundblom created were adapted for Coca-Cola advertising in magazines and on store displays, billboards, posters, calendars and plush dolls. Many of those items today are popular collectables.
In the beginning, Sundblom painted the image of Santa using a live model — his friend Lou Prentiss, a retired salesman. When Prentiss passed away, Sundblom used himself as a model, painting while looking into a mirror. Finally, he began relying on photographs to create the image of St. Nick.
People loved the Coca-Cola Santa images and paid such close attention to them that when anything changed, they sent letters to The Coca-Cola Company.
Coca-Cola advert featuring Sandblum inspired Santa, 1956.
Sundblom created his final version of Santa Claus in 1964, but for several decades to follow, Coca-Cola advertising featured images of Santa based on Sundblom’s original works. These paintings are some of the most prized pieces in the art collection in the company’s archives department and have been on exhibit around the world,
Before this, Santa had been portrayed in a variety of ways throughout history: tall and gaunt; short and elfin; distinguished and intellectual; even downright frightening. Sundblom’s paintings for Coca‑Cola established Santa as a warm, happy character with human features such as rosy cheeks, a white beard, twinkling eyes and laughter lines.
This grandfather-style Coca‑Cola Santa captivated the public and, as Coca-Cola advertisements spread globally, the perception of the North Pole’s most-famous resident changed forever.
Source credit : https://www.coca-colacompany.com/company/history/five-things-you-never-knew-about-santa-claus-and-coca-cola
Image source : https://theferret.scot/fact-check-coca-cola-red-santa-claus-christmas/
Rakhi Sunil Kumar
A Visit from St. Nicholas
Clement Clarke Moore – 1779-1863
‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;
The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads;
And mamma in her ’kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled our brains for a long winter’s nap,
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.
The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow
Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below,
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer,
With a little old driver, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name;
“Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer and Vixen!
On, Comet! on, Cupid! on, Donder and Blitzen!
To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!”
As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky;
So up to the house-top the coursers they flew,
With the sleigh full of Toys, and St. Nicholas too.
And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound.
He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot;
A bundle of Toys he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a pedler just opening his pack.
His eyes—how they twinkled! his dimples how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow
And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow;
The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath;
He had a broad face and a little round belly,
That shook when he laughed, like a bowlful of jelly.
He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself;
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread;
He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And filled all the stockings; then turned with a jerk,
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose;
He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle,
But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight,
“Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night.”
source credit : https://poets.org/poem/visit-st-nicholas