Merry Christmas 2025: Was Santa Claus always like this, or is there a hidden story? Details inside

Every holiday season, as winter sets in, kids start gearing up with bated breath for the fluffy, jolly guy in the red suit to pop up and deliver gifts to them.

Santa Claus feels like he's been around forever, a cozy symbol of giving, magic, and winter fun that kids dream about and adults secretly love.

But did you know that the Santa we all know today didn't just evolve naturally from old stories? He was basically designed in a studio as part of a smart business move that stuck for ages.

With a little research, one can find that his look ties back to clever ads from the early 1900s, which struck the right balance between folklore and modern thinking.

Santa was not always the same from the start.

European tales of Saint Nicholas painted him differently, and American artists experimented with wild variations before one company nailed the winning version.

How a popular soda brand gave Santa his signature look
Long before the shiny ads we see today, Santa Claus drew inspiration from European folklore tied to Saint Nicholas, but he didn’t resemble the plump, cheerful grandpa we know.


According to the Coca-Cola Company’s official history, "depictions [of Santa] varied wildly" in the 18th and 19th centuries, showing him as "a tall, thin monk in religious robes" or "a short, even slightly unsettling elf" with colors like green, brown, blue, or muted yellow.

Santa’s depiction changed in the 20th century

This mellow description changed in the early 20th century amid tough times. The Great Depression hit hard in the 1930s, and Coca-Cola struggled with seasonal sales. People guzzled the drink in summer but ignored it in winter, leaving warehouses stuffed. As marketing historian Anne Hoy writes in The Story of Coca-Cola (2020), the company realised it "had to feel relevant in winter, and no winter festival carried more emotional weight than Christmas."

According to the Library of Congress archives, in 1931, Coca-Cola hired illustrator Haddon Sundblom to redesign Santa for their ads. They ditched the stern or spooky vibes for someone warm and family-friendly.

Sundblom pulled from Clement Clarke Moore’s 1823 poem A Visit from St. Nicholas, also known as "'Twas the Night Before Christmas," giving Santa a round face with rosy cheeks, kind eyes, and a fluffy white beard. He even modeled him after a retired salesman buddy for that grandfatherly charm, dressing him in a bold red suit with white fur trim to match Coke's branding.

The Santa we know today appeared first in an ad in the 1930s

The first ads hit magazines like The Saturday Evening Post in 1931, showing Santa sipping Coke to recharge during his gift runs, with the subtle message that Coke is for every season. And it worked, as their winter sales climbed because families linked the drink to holiday fun.

There are contrasting views too

According to the Harvard Press Catalogue, experts like cultural historian Karal Ann Marling in Merry Christmas: Celebrating America’s Greatest Holiday (2000) point out that this wasn’t an invention from scratch; red-suited Santas existed before, such as in 1881 Harper's Weekly drawings. But Sundblom's consistent, jolly image standardized him worldwide.