The modern X’mas and Santa Claus

20 Dec 2009

The origin of Santa
Historically, western people had always celebrated the winter solstice as the time when the days begin to lengthen, indicating the earth's return to life. Santa Claus is a thoroughly American invention. There was a St. Nicholas long ago and a feeble holiday connected with him (on December 5).
In 1822, an American named Clement Clarke Moore wrote a poem about a visit from St. Nick.

It was Moore (and a few other New Yorkers) who invented St. Nick's physical appearance and personality, came up with the idea that Santa travels on Christmas Eve in a sleigh pulled by reindeer, comes down the chimney, stuffs toys in the kids' stockings, then goes back to the North Pole.

The politics
Of course, the Puritans denounced Santa as the Anti-Christ, because he pushed Jesus to the background. Furthermore, Santa implicitly rejected the whole Christian ethics. He did not denounce the rich and demand that they give substantial to the poor; on the contrary, he gave gifts to rich and poor children alike. Nor is Santa a champion of Christian mercy or unconditional love. On the contrary, he is for justice -- Santa gives only to good children, not to bad ones.

Early Christians denounced gift-giving as a Roman practice, and Puritans called it diabolical. But Americans were not to be deterred. Thanks to capitalism, there was enough wealth to make small gifts possible, a great productive apparatus to advertise them and make them available cheaply, and a country so content that men wanted to reach out to their friends and express their way of enjoyment of life.

The influence Coca Cola company on the image of modern day Santa?
Of course not, but it's such a widely-held belief that it has become an urban myth. All Coca-Cola wanted to do was get people to drink more soda during cold months. In the 1930s, soft drinks were a very seasonal beverage. You’d drink them in the summer and maybe the spring, but winter was a down time for the company.

Enter Santa and his red suit. Red is Coke’s corporate color. There’s your ad campaign. “(Santa’s) going to travel all over the world, he’s going to get thirsty, so why not let him have a Coke?”

The company does tip its hat to illustrator Haddon Sundblom for reinforcing the image of the “modern” Santa – the chubby and plump right jolly old elf.  The Santa drawings would change each year, but it was still the same person in the red suit, often with soft drink in hand.

Today’s reality
The tragedy is that spiritual meaning of Christmas has lost in the desert of capitalism. The spiritual must start with recognizing reality. In capitalist society life requires reason, selfishness -- and really, underneath all pretenses, that is what it does celebrate. It is now Christ is out of Christmas. The holiday has turned into an egoistic, pro-reason, this-worldly, commercial celebration.

When you were a kid your parents may have given gifts saying that was from Santa, But even at your big age you may still be fooled by your cooperate company culture with mere decorations of X’mas trees and even a bogus Santa might visit your cubicle and throw few pieces of chocos and go wishing you merry X’mas. Your big bosses always like you to be treated as kids so that you will never question about the pay hikes, bonuses or quality of life.

Lanka Rising Wish all the Christians a knowledgeable and happy X’mas.

References:
- Historian: Coca-Cola didn't invent modern Santa
- At what age did you realize Santa Clause was a commercialized Christmas version?
- Christmas Should be More Commercial