Thanks Coca-Cola!

Some say that we can thank the Coca-Cola company for the way we imagine the modern day Santa Claus.

.

Originally Santa Claus was dressed in furs or cloth suits of red, blue, green, or purple. Each country portrayed him in a different color. At the beginning of the 1930's, the burgeoning Coca-Cola company was looking for ways to increase sales of their product during winter, then a slow time of year for the soft drink market. They turned to a talented commercial illustrator named Haddon Sundblom, who created a series of memorable drawings that associated the figure of a larger than life, red-and-white grabed Santa Claus with Coca-Cola. These advertisements of Santas holding bottles of Coke became a perennial Christmastime feature which helped spur Coca-Cola sales. The success of this advertising campaign helped invent the image of the modern Santa Claus that is now accepted across the world.