On the BBC. Some twat on the breakfast show whining about Coca Cola inventing Santa Claus. Yet a quick search on the interwebby tells us that this is cockwaffle as I already knew. Indeed, the “modern” incarnation of Santa Claus dates from the early nineteenth century. No one on the set challenged this moron, so the BBC is, indeed, peddling fake news. Or, in this case, peddling the “capitalism is evil” trope.
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Resisting the urge to google it; I understood that the 19C Santa Claus was dressed in green until Coca Cola used the imagery with their corporate colors…?
No. Thomas Nast was producing images of him in a red suit from the 1870s.
The BBC will run almost snything at the moment, like the cretinous Vicky Pollard like monster who appeared on VIctoria Derbyshire’s show a week ago and who, inspired byb the Catalan struggle, was raising a petition demanding regional autonomy for Canvey Island
And I am not making that up…
My first thought about this was ‘who cares’. I think that it is likely that there were originally several different images of Santa and it could well be the case that Coca Cola’s adoption of the red and white version in their advertising led to that one becoming pretty much universal. Santas in other colours are still around, particularly dark green and maroon ones. The ghost of Christmas Present as depicted in various adaptations of Dickens’ Christmas Carol is a Santa like character too. The Muppets version is particularly good. Very Olde Worlde Christmas cards from an outfit called Heddingham Fair also have pre cola images of Santa on them.