For a long time, I was under the impression that Coca-Cola created today’s Santa Claus image. That’s only partly true. In reality, it took many people and many steps to create the current-day portly, jolly man in the red suit and white beard who lives at the North Pole and makes toys for children. Over time, Santa was depicted as everything from a tall gaunt man to a spooky-looking elf. He has donned a bishop’s robe and a Norse huntsman’s animal skin. His name may be a phonetic derivation of the Dutch Sinterklaas.

It took many people to create the image of Santa Claus, the portly, jolly man in the red suit and white beard who lives at the North Pole. www.walled-in-berlin.com

Washington Irving Invents the Santa Claus image

In 1812, Irving published a satirical history of New York under the pseudonym Diedrich Knickerbocker. In the book, Santa rides over the tops of trees in a horse-drawn wagon and is described as a “jolly Dutchman” who smokes a clay pipe.

Clement Clarke Moore adds the reindeer-drawn sleigh

Ten years later, Moore published the poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” which is now known as “The Night Before Christmas.” In it, he mentions a sleigh drawn by eight reindeer, named Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner and Blitzen.

Thomas Nast makes Santa an elf-like figure

When Civil War political cartoonist and caricaturist Thomas Nast drew Santa Claus for Harper’s Weekly in 1862, Santa was a small elf-like figure who supported the Union. Nast continued to draw him for 30 years, eventually changing the color of his coat from tan to red and portraying a kinder-looking old fellow.

Coca-Cola uses Santa Claus image in its marketing

The Coca-Cola Company began its Christmas advertising in the 1920s with shopping-related ads in magazines like The Saturday Evening Post. The first ads used a strict-looking Santa, similar to Thomas Nast’s creations. In 1930, the artist Fred Mizen painted a department-store Santa in a crowd drinking a bottle of Coke. The painting was used in print ads that Christmas season and appeared in The Saturday Evening Post in December 1930.

Haddon Sundblom creates modern Santa Claus image

In 1931, Sundblom created a series of Santa Claus ads for Coca-Cola. Initially, the image was close to Nast’s. Over time, magazine and billboard ads helped to standardize Santa’s grandfatherly features. From 1931 to 1964, Coca-Cola ads showed him delivering toys, reading letters while enjoying a Coke and visiting with the children who waited up to greet him.

Ward’s makes Rudolph Santa’s lead Reindeer

In 1939, Montgomery Ward’s introduced Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer in its ad campaign. The song with the same name became a worldwide hit. It suggested that Santa came down from the North Pole to deliver gifts for the children. The reindeer pulled his heavy sleigh with Santa at the reigns and Rudolph in the lead.

And that’s the way it was. Merry Christmas to you all!

For a sneak peek at the first 20+ pages of my memoir, Walled-In: A West Berlin Girl’s Journey to Freedom, click “Download a free excerpt” on my home page and feel free to follow my blog about anything German: historic and current events, people, places and food.

Walled-In is my story of growing up in Berlin during the Cold War. Juxtaposing the events that engulfed Berlin during the Berlin Blockade, the Berlin Airlift, the Berlin Wall and Kennedy’s Berlin visit with the struggle against my equally insurmountable parental walls, Walled-In is about freedom vs. conformity, conflict vs. harmony, domination vs. submission, loyalty vs. betrayal.