Santa + Coca Cola

Santa is all about a Coke deal. No joke. Fat and jolly Santa with the red suit and cap, thick black belt and sooty boots, rosy cheeks, luminous eyes and brighter-than-white teeth... is the genius of an advertising campaign by Coca-Cola back in the 1930's.

Thanks to The Soos for this link to an alternetdotorg story on the origins of our present day Santa... The story charts the rise of the Red suit:

As Mark Pendergrast, author of For God, Country and Coca-Cola, concluded: "Prior to the Sundblom illustrations, the Christmas saint had been variously illustrated wearing blue, yellow, green, or red.... After the soft drink ads, Santa would forever more be a huge, fat, relentlessly happy man with broad belt and black hip boots-and he would wear Coca-Cola red .... While Coca-Cola has had a subtle, pervasive influence on our culture, it has directly shaped the way we think of Santa."

Check it out...