Targeting Santa

[CHIMO]

Groups in Germany and Austria have launched campaigns protesting the commercialization of Christmas. The target of their ire is Santa, an American import who they say doesn't represent what the holiday is all about.

The image of Santa most known today -- fat, white bearded and in a red suit -- is indeed a creation of the Coca-Cola company, which was looking for a new figure to use in its advertising campaigns in the 1930s and 1940s.

"St. Nicholas was a man who helped the poor, saved people who were unjustly condemned, freed prisoners," Schade said. "You could say he was a forerunner of Amnesty International. Santa is much less than that -- just about giving gifts."

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,1564,1431570,00.html

[Theres-a]

1. wow

who knew...

[Emboldened Chimp]

2. Wasn't ole Saint Nick German?

Isn't he the prototypical Santa?

[DrDebug]

4. Yes he is one and the same

But Saint Nicholas had his party on a different date. The Americans moved it to Christmas

[fryguy]

7. don't know how accurate this is....

but found this site about the history of the "real" Saint Nicholas:
http://www.stnicholascenter.org/Brix?pageID=38
He didn't live anywhere near the North Pole, in case you're wondering...

[El Supremo]

3. Sounds OK to me.

But maybe we should also get rid of that German import, the Christmas tree which has now become has been transformed from a pagan to a Christian symbol.

[Maple]

5. Why not just leave

the trees the pagan symbol they have always been?

[Squatch]

6. Santa is a hack

What ever happened to Knecht Ruprecht?

[damntexdem]

8. I say that we should keep the X in Xmas, ...

the han in Chanukah, and the winter in Winter Solstice.

[donheld]

12. And Festiv

in Festivus

[rurallib]

9. Woden

Read the other day how the old Germanic god Woden (Norse - Odin) is the real precursor of Santa. The christians put Woden's characteristics on St.Nick @the 1600s - 1700s to keep christmas christain or something like that. That the St. Nick stories are just that stories.
Woden was accompanied by two wolve was fat & had a beard in this incarnation and would give gifts to good children during Yule as the days lengthened.

[4_TN_TITANS]

10. interesting....

It's amazing how things get lost or incorporated through mindless rituals and traditions until the real message is lost. A very good reminder...... :kick:

[GoBlue]

11. Santa Clause, St. Nick,

Take your pick. Seems to me that the honest thing to do is admit Christmas has little to do with Christ.

[KurtNYC]

13. So much for their research - Santa NOT created by Coke

http://www.snopes.com/cokelore/santa.asp

In 1821, a New York printer named William Gilley issued a poem about a "Santeclaus" who dressed all in fur and drove a sleigh pulled by one reindeer. Gilley's "Sante," however, was very short.
...
In 1863, a caricaturist for Harper's Weekly named Thomas Nast began developing his own image of Santa. Nast gave his figure a "flowing set of whiskers" and dressed him "all in fur, from his head to his foot." Nast's 1866 montage entitled "Santa Claus and His Works" established Santa as a maker of toys; an 1869 book of the same name collected new Nast drawings with a poem by George P. Webster that identified the North Pole as Santa's home. Although Nast never settled on one size for his Santa figures (they ranged from elf-like to man-sized), his 1881 "Merry Old Santa Claus" drawing is quite close to the modern-day image.