A Poem, Coca-cola and the Commercialization of Santa Clause

“…..Washington Irving’s St. Nicholas strongly influenced the poem’s portrayal of a round, pipe-smoking, elf-like St. Nicholas. The poem (The Night Before Christmas) generally has been attributed to Clement Clark Moore, a professor of biblical languages at New York’s Episcopal General Theological Seminary. However, a case has been made by Don Foster in Author Unknown, that Henry Livingston actually penned it in 1807 or 1808. Livingston was a farmer/patriot who wrote humorous verse for children. In any case, “A Visit from St. Nicholas” became a defining American holiday classic. No matter who wrote it, the poem has had enormous influence on the Americanization of St. Nicholas.

Other artists and writers continued the change to an elf-like St. Nicholas, “Sancte Claus,” or “Santa Claus,” unlike the stately European bishop. In 1863, political cartoonist Thomas Nast began a series of annual black-and-white drawings in Harper’s Weekly, based on the descriptions found in the poem and Washington Irving’s work. These drawings established a rotund Santa with flowing beard, fur garments, and an omnipresent clay pipe. As Nast drew Santas until 1886, his work had considerable influence in forming the American Santa Claus. Along with appearance changes, the saint’s name shifted to Santa Claus—a natural phonetic alteration from the German Sankt Niklaus and Dutch Sinterklaas.

Santa was then portrayed by dozens of artists in a wide variety of styles, sizes, and colors. However by the end of the 1920s, a standard American Santa—life-sized in a red, fur-trimmed suit—had emerged from the work of N. C. Wyeth, Norman Rockwell and other popular illustrators. In 1931 Haddon Sundblom began thirty-five years of Coca-Cola Santa advertisements that popularized and firmly established this Santa as an icon of contemporary commercial culture.

This Santa was life-sized, jolly, and wore the now familiar red suit. He appeared in magazines, on billboards, and shop counters, encouraging Americans to see Coke as the solution to “a thirst for all seasons.” By the 1950s Santa was turning up everywhere as a benign source of beneficence, endorsing an amazing range of consumer products. This commercial success led to the North American Santa Claus being exported around the world where he threatens to overcome the European St. Nicholas, who has retained his identity as a Christian bishop and saint.” From “Saint Nicholas and the Origin of Santa Claus” at the “St. Nicholas Center” website which is full of interesting information concerning St. Nicholas of Myra.

Leaving Rome

Dr. Mary Ward (PhD.), a life-long member of the Roman Catholic Church and professor of Theology at a major Jesuit University, tells us why she left the church of her youth and joined the Orthodox Church as an adult. The Illumined Heart

A Changed Life and A Warm Heart

1. Faith and Reason
The writings of the Russian philosopher Ivan Kireyevsky contain some basic ideas which are very apropos for us today. The usual argument between faith and reason, he wrote, is not correct. Reason is such a thing that it must be raised up to a higher level, and this is what the Orthodox Church tries to give. By itself, reason does not offer any more than an understanding of this two-dimensional, corporeal realm, with which most of the critics and scholars of the West are occupying themselves. There is something, however, above this. According to Western thinking, if you go “above” this, you usually have to deny reason and “jump into the dark.” In Orthodoxy this is not so, for the reason itself is so exposed to Truth that it begins to be elevated above itself.

We will examine how this point relates to contemporary Orthodox Christians, and especially to missionary-minded converts.

2. Missionary Fervor
There is much discussion in the Orthodox world about the need for people in the West to be converted, for more services in English, for overcoming ethnicism in the Church. This positive missionary fervor is a very good sign (except, of course, when negative comments are made). In fact, as Archimandrite Constantine (of Jordanville) often said, the best time for missionary activity is right now, because the less Christian America becomes, the more the Orthodox mission increases. Our positive missionary fervor, however, must be guided by an awareness of the times in which we live, so that we will know how to save our souls and save others.

It is natural for those who are in the Church of Christ, realizing what it means to be Orthodox, not to be satisfied with just having it for themselves. Knowing that Orthodoxy is the Truth for all peoples, they want it for others: for their own friends and relatives, and for whoever may have their heart open to it. Yet, as we look about us today, we see the Orthodox Church so hemmed in by Communist persecution in one place and by worldliness in another. The situation is, of course, worse in the West, which is occupied by worldliness. Under Communism, one can suffer for Christ and at least bring something good out of that; whereas, under the influence of worldliness, Orthodox Christianity loses its savor and the believers become just like anybody else. In the latter case, many Protestants put many Orthodox to shame, since they have fervor and love for Christ without even knowing what the Church of Christ is.

These situations, however, should not cause the slightest difference in our missionary fervor. (And the same may be said for the situation, faced by many English-speaking converts, of having to attend services in a foreign language.) We must remember that Christ expects from us not missionary fervor, but a changed life and a warm heart. The missionary fervor is on a secondary level, on the external side. We see numerous examples of people with great missionary fervor who did not place first the internal side of changing themselves, warming their hearts and raising their minds to a higher level, as Kireyevsky describes. These people became “burnt out” and fruitless, and some of them even left the Church.”-Fr. Seraphim Rose