In the spirit of colour red and Christmas

What colour reminds you of Christmas? Some smart alec would attribute the colours green, brown, silver and gold combinations found on a Christmas tree as quintessentially the spirit of Yuletide. But what is the season without the red hue of the tunic of Saint Nicholas, you say.

There is a long-standing conspiracy theory that it is no mere coincidence that Santa’s ‘Father Christmas’ costume has the same hue as that of Cola-Cola advertisements.

Coca-Cola did start using Santa in advertising in 1933. Santa had been portrayed almost exclusively in red from the early 19th century, and most of his modern image was put together by the famous American caricaturist, Thomas Nast, in the 1870s.
Thomas Nest is well known to have drawn the Elephant for the Republican Party. He popularised the Democratic donkey, Uncle Sam and Columbia, the female personification of American values. This man, dubbed as the American father of cartoons, is honoured for portraying the modern Santa Claus with a red tunic.

A Thomas Nast Santa from 1881,
wearing the modern Santa suit

Before that, Santa was depicted in tan. Nest also drew in green. It was Haddon Sundblom, working as an advertiser for Coca Cola Company in 1931 who immortalised Santa's costume to remain forever red. How convenient, Coca Cola's corporate colour also became red; reminding potential to stock their homes with the red beverage which corresponds to the spirit of the Season of Christmas. This must have been the time Edward Bernays, the nephew to Sigmund Freud, who incorporated psychology into the retail business.

The colour red also worked just fine to highlight the spiritual significance of X' mas. Red denotes blood, and for the celebration of a figure who would have to die to wash the sins of mankind, it fits pretty well.

Think celebration, think red, think Coca Cola.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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