The Lie About Santa Claus That Just Won’t Die
I love a good fun fact. Too much so, as many stalled conversations can attest. If you want to be a know-it-all, though, you absolutely have to make sure that what you know is right. Otherwise, you’re just a nerd-coded compulsive liar.
As we approach the holidays, did-you-knowers around the country are polishing off their old, roasted chestnuts of Christmas trivia — including one that is not, and has never, been true. It’s one you’re almost guaranteed to have heard before, and probably didn’t challenge: that the “modern image of Santa Claus was invented by Coca-Cola.”
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I’m not out here trying to defend corporations from accusations of having outsized influence. We’re traipsing around in an oligarchy, getting force-fed company-friendly legislation and crapping plastic waste directly into the Pacific Ocean. On this specific charge, however, Coca-Cola is innocent.
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As to the origin of the lie? It’s true that Coca-Cola uses Santa extensively in their advertising, and in each one, he’s covered in their corporate colorway. The fact that Santa is all red and white, however, might be the chicken and not the egg here. It might not have been a chain-smoking Don Draper type that recommended a palette swap for St. Nick, but instead someone realizing, “Hey, Santa looks pretty good on our soda cans.”
It turns out, to the exact expectations of everyone, that Santa just wears a red suit. Finding examples to prove this isn’t a game of digging through microfiche at the local library, either. There’s plenty of them, from different sources and long before Coke’s first Santa appearance in 1931, as documented with what feels like at least mild frustration by Snopes.
I wish I could give you another bit of exciting information to replace the one I just extracted, like that Santa’s appearance was invented by Norman Rockwell, or comes from a cave painting, but all I have is the boring truth: The modern, red-and-white, holly-jolly Santa has been around for a long time, no advertising blitz needed.
