History of Santa Clause
Santa Clause is very popular and admired in children. He is also known as Kris Kringle, Father Christmas or just “Santa”. Santa Clause is the mythical, legendary and fairy tale character in many Western cultures. He brings toys and gifts at good children’s home on Christmas Eve, 24th December. Generally, Santa is portrayed as chubby, friendly and white bearded old man who is dressed up in bishop’s robes, red coat and trousers with black boots and leather belt. Each year Santa Clause’s image is reinforced and publicized through media, books, songs and movies. However there is contrast in people’s opinion regarding existence and history of Santa Clause.
There is a group of Fundamental Christians who strictly criticize Santa Clause and express him as a complicated character. They protest and say that Santa tradition is leading children to sheer lie. They portray their anger by condemning parents who are teaching their children on believing a lie. There is another group who says Santa Clause has no real purpose and just a fictitious character as it is a commercially fabricated figure. If you look at the history of Santa Clause, in 1863 Thomas Nast has depicted in his illustrations Santa as an immortal and timeless personality. According to Nast Santa lives in North Pole, there were many poems related to Santa that he lived in icy and snowy mountains of North Pole.
In 1902 L. Frank Baum’s published his popular book The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus; Santa became immortal by this book as many new descriptions came that he has 10 reindeers and a magical Sleigh. At the beginning of 1930 Coca Cola Company took serious initiatives to advertise and popularize Santa Clause. Rumor says that Santa wears red and white as it is the official color of Coca Cola. However there is no truth in such accusations as in 1916, White Rock Beverages utilized Santa’s image to sell their mineral water.
Although Coca Cola just took the initial opportunity to popularize Santa’s image as well as their product. Since 1902 Santa Clause was considered as a friendly old man who contributes a lot in children orphanages. In the beginning many people used to dress up as Santa and do fund raising for different organizations and associations. There were many volunteers helping needy family and poor children through their contributions and donations as Santa Clause. Till the end of 20th Century the image of Santa was very much accepted and he was thought of a kind hearted and generous man who lived in North Pole and distributes toys and gifts to children all over the world.
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