Coca Cola invented Santa?

Every X Mass this topic will inevitably come up. You will be sitting around with your family, exchanging gifts, getting in fights, or sitting in awkward silence (whatever your family is in to) and someone will blurt out: "You know, Coca Cola invented Santa Clause!" What? Fuck off! They will then elaborate: "Well they invented the modern image of Santa Clause." Oh, well that sounds slightly more plausible.

We all remember those classic Coca Cola advertisements featuring Santa sipping on a tasty bottle of Coke, maybe they did invent the modern image? I will admit that there was a time that I believed this myself. It's very easy to believe something when so many people will tell you that it is true. I mean they heard it from a friend of a friend so it must be true, right? Wrong! You will find with the aid of a quick Goggle search, that Coca Cola invented Santa Claus no more than they invented polar bears!

The modern image of Santa Claus is an amalgamation of two older characters, St. Nicholas, the adorable little Elf from the poem "'Twas The Night Before Christmas", and Kriss Kringle (aka. Christkindlein), the child like gift bringer of Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

In 1881 a man named Thomas Nast drew a picture of Santa Clause for the cover of Harpers Weekly (right). This is considered to be the creation of the modern image of Santa Claus. This picture however was not in color, so some might say "Well it was Coca Cola who made him wear a red suit." Wrong again! J. C. Leyendecker drew an image of Santa Claus for the cover of the Saturday Evening Post (left) depicting a fat man with a white beard in a red suit, the same basic image of Santa we have come to know today. Published in December of 1923, this image predates the Coca Cola Santa Clause ad campaign by about seven years!

Since this blog is suppose to be about being angry, I'm going to finish this off by saying: Quit fucking telling people that Coca Cola invented Santa! Coca Cola did not invent fucking Santa Clause!!!

Merry X Mass!




Sources:
http://www.billcasselman.com/xmas_items/nast_santa_designer_xmas_2007_expanded.htm
http://www.curtispublishing.com/List/html/LeyendeckerMayer.html
http://www.snopes.com/cokelore/santa.asp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca_cola