Who is Father Christmas?

 

Over the years there has been much debate over who Father Christmas is and more importantly what is the actual colour of his suit? Is it originally red or green? Or the most common question, did Coca-Cola invent the big guy? Well, we wanted to know so we did some digging...

The man behind the story of Father Christmas and who started the tradition is St. Nicholas. St. Nicholas was a Bishop who lived in the fourth century in a place called Myra in Asia Minor, which today is Turkey. After his parents died when he was young, he was left with all their fortunes and went on to help the poor and often left secret gifts to people who needed it.

The most famous story about St. Nicholas is the one in which hanging stockings above the fire place became a tradition. The story goes like this:

There was once a poor man who had three daughters. He was so poor that he did not have enough money for his daughters to get married. And so, Nicholas decided that he would help. One night he secretly dropped a bag of gold down the chimney into the man's house, meaning that the eldest daughter could get married. The bag fell down the chimney and just happened to fall into the stocking hanging by the fire. Nicholas, then repeated this another time for the second daughter. The man was determined to catch whoever was being so kind and decided to hide by the fire every evening until he caught Nicholas dropping the bag a third time. Nicholas begged the man not to say anything because he did not want the attention. But soon word got out and whenever anyone received a gift, it was thought to be Nicholas.

Because of his acts of kindess Nicholas became a Saint, and so St. Nicholas was born. He later died on the 6th December in either 345 or 352 - nobody knows the exact date. And this is when the Feast of St. Nicholas started. In some European countries, such as Holland, they celebrate St. Nicholas' Day, where children leave clogs and shoes out on the 5th December - St. Nicholas Eve - to be filled with presents.

During the 16th century in Northern Europe, stories of St. Nicholas became a thing of the past and the traditions of Father Christmas or Old Man Christmas became popular.

In the USA, he had another name, Kris Kringle from the Christkind. Later Dutch, settlers in the USA took inspiration from the stories of St. Nicholas and Kris Kringle and so came the name 'Sinterklaas, or Santa Claus.

St. Nicholas became popular once again in the Victorian era when poets and writers rediscovered the old stories.

In 1823, the famous poem, 'A Visit from St. Nicholas' or most commonly known 'T'was the Night Before Christmas' was published. In the poem, we are introduced to the eight reindeers that carry the sleigh. They became so well known that the song 'Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer' was written in 1949.

Over the years the British, Father Christmas and the American's, Santa Claus became more and more alike and now have become the same. Although there are still questions about where he really lives. The American's belive he lives in the North Pole, whereas European's say he lives in the northern region of Lapland in Finland.

But everyone agrees that he travels through the night on a sledge with his eight reindeers, with Rudolph leading the way.

 Finally, the biggest debate of all time... what colour is his suit?

It's said that Coca-Cola created the red suit and some even go as far as saying that the company even created the man himself. Yet, according to our research this is definitely not true!

The robe that St. Nicholas originally wore was a Bishop's robe, and they often came in a range of colours - green, being the most popular, but they also wore red, blue and brown.

In January 1863, Harper's Weekly published the first illustration by Thomas Nast. In the illustration he was wearing a 'Stars and Stripes' outfit. Over the years, the illustrations and image of Father Christmas started to develop and in 1881, the most famous and recognisable image of a big red belly, armful of toys and smoking pipe was created.

Now this is where Coca-Cola came onto the scene. In the 1920's, the iconic Father Christmas with a large belly, looking all jolly whilst holding a bottle of the fizzy pop was introduced. 

From there, thanks to modern advertising this became the standardised image and the rest is history.