The Friends of Beamish Museum.The Origins of the Modern Santa Claus.
A Happy Christmas to Everyone.
Whether you celebrate a traditional Christmas or not this is the time of year to add a bit of cheer to your life and to bring joy to others. So, seasons greetings to you all. Have a good time and drive away the winter blues.
Even if it's not Christmas there's still the ongoing debate about the origins of the modern Santa Claus. Did Coca Cola invent our Santa Claus?
Photograph: A Bright and Merry Christmas Postcard pre 1914.
The half penny stamp on the other side of the card dates it before June 1918 and the fact that it was printed in Germany probably means before the beginning of the war in 1914.
Did Coca Cola invent Santa Claus? Myth exploded?
I was in the Beamish Museum Town with my friend Avril when I mentioned that it would be a good idea to have a Santa Claus of the 1913 period in town for the kids to visit.
Avril didn't think that they had a Santa Claus, as we know him, in 1913 and that he had been invented by the Coca Cola Company in the twenties. I thought not, but it definitely needs some investigation. We decided to see what the Internet had to say.
So, was the modern image of Santa Claus, a jolly figure in a red-and-white suit, created by Coca-Cola?
They say so on their website.
Haddon Sundblom is an artist that executed the first painting of Santa Claus for The Coca-Cola Company. At holiday time in 1931, Sundblom's Santa Claus appeared for the first time on posters and in magazines advertising Coca-Cola and has been appearing ever since at Christmas in numerous poses and situations. Thanks to Haddon Sundblom, the company's Santa Claus has become universally accepted as the image and concept of the patron saint for Christmas.
BUT you can find out the other side of the story by visiting another site that seems to blow this Santa Claus Myth.
Has anyone else got a Victorian Christmas postcard showing Santa with his red and white suit and hat, carrying his sack of toys, as we know him today? Did Coca Cola invent the Yo Ho Ho? There are lots of questions to be answered about the roll of Santa in the pre first world war period.
The answers may lie in old postcards, pictures and books of the period so if you can help with this bit of seasonal research I would be very grateful. Contact us now if you have any information to throw light on the Santa mystery one way or the other.
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