Santa Claus

by Gerry Bowler

  Sundblom’s genius in his decades of work for Coca-Cola was not that he added anything to our knowledge of Santa Claus but that he made a familiar image even more likeable and widespread. Sundblom’s vision of the gift-bringer emphasized lavishness and self-indulgence. In the middle of the Depression, he scorned the meagre street-corner and department-store Santas to produce one who was the roliest-poliest yet, clad in an abundance of furs, with a jaunty angle to his white moustache, and a penchant for raiding other people’s refrigerators. Sundblom’s early paintings such as “My hat’s off to the pause that refreshes” and “Away with a tired thirsty face” continued the notion of Coke as an almost-medicinal pick-me-up, but it was his “Me too” (1936) that introduced the theme of Santa Claus as an out-of-control consumer. Here he is portrayed with his red jacket off, making himself at home in an unsuspecting family’s living room, playing with the toys under the Christmas tree, and lifting a wasp-waisted bottle to his lips. He is even more brazen in the next year’s campaign. A shameless Santa has raided the family’s supply of Coke and he has ripped a drumstick from the Christmas turkey, justifying his theft with a specious plea to reciprocity: “ ‘Give and take’ say I.” Later campaigns would try to soften this image of a midnight raider, implying that Santa Claus had been left bottles of Coke by a grateful family. In 1938, he approvingly notes, while holding a bottle, that “Somebody knew I was coming”; in 1943, he relaxes in an armchair holding a note that reads, “Dear Santa, Have a ‘Coke’ = welcome at our house. Your Pal xxx”; and in 1945, even before entering the house, Santa has spotted a familiar bottle and letter and remarks smugly, “They knew what I wanted.”

  There is no evidence that these advertisements ever led to a nation of children preparing a plate of cookies and a bottle of Coke for the gift-bringer, but the ads were enormously popular and became a part of the North American Christmas landscape. Sundblom produced at least one a year from 1931 to 1964, and at one point his work graced half of all of Coca-Cola’s billboards. His first model was Lou Prentice, a retired neighbour, and after Prentice’s death in the late 1940s Sundblom used himself as the image of Santa Claus. (Though Sundblom was credited for these attractive renditions of Santa, he was not allowed to paint the bottle of Coca-Cola itself. He was commissioned to deliver his canvases unfinished so that another artist with a finer touch could add a flawless image of the bottle, including the line of text asserting its trademark and patent.) The overwhelming ubiquity of these advertisements – with the Coca-Cola-swilling Santa Claus presiding over busy street corners from his perch on billboards, to life-sized cutouts positioned in strategic store aisles, to his face in magazines found in living rooms and bathrooms across the nation, and nowadays to a host of retro “collectibles” hawked on eBay – ensured that no rival version of Santa could emerge in the North American consciousness.

  A variation on the theme of the gift-bringer as a consumer is Santa Claus as the recipient of a gift. Elgin watches in 1926 showed a group of devoted children visiting a rather aged Santa (the baldest since Webster’s hymn to hairlessness in the 1860s) and presenting him with his own timepiece. Santa also commonly figures as an indirect endorser of a product when he is shown delivering a particular present.

  Were there products that Santa Claus could not be usefully dragooned into supporting? It seems not. In fact, so authoritative a figure was he that many companies that produced goods or services that could not by any stretch of the imagination be termed a Christmas gift felt compelled to have his seal of approval. The suppliers of furnace coal in Forked River, New Jersey, must have intuited a profitable connection between their product and those lumps that were dropped into the stockings of bad little boys and girls when they sent out a trade card, adorned by Santa, proclaiming “A Happy, Healthy, Warm New Year is already guaranteed you, if your bin is full of clean, hard, long-burning L. & W.B. Anthracite.” In 1919, Norman Rockwell illustrated an ad urging readers of the Ladies’ Home Journal to “Eat Bread.” As Santa Claus peered in a window at bread-bingeing kiddies, the text suggested that “Now at the time of gifts and gift-giving, think of the best of all gifts for your children – Health.… Buy an extra loaf today.” Beginning in 1910, a number of American railroads – the Chesapeake, the New York Central, the Pennsylvania, the Frisco, and the Southern Pacific lines – featured Santa Claus in their ads, often with no reference to him other than his attention-grabbing image. Michelin tires and Firestone (makers of the amazingly safe Gum-Dipped Balloons) both found a place for Santa in their pitches, as did Novadel, “the modern maturing and bleaching process that put the Hit in White.” Mrs. Claus made one of her rare mercantile appearances when she bluntly instructed the departing gift-laden Santa: “When you come back, be sure the bag’s full of FELS-NAPTHA SOAP.”

  Then there was the weapons industry. In 1903, the J. Stevens Arms & Tool Company of Chicopee Falls, Massachusetts, presented a heavily armed Santa Claus standing on a snowy rooftop beside a car. Festooning the horseless carriage is a veritable arsenal of firearms. The holly-wreathed text informs the reader that the Santa Claus of the twentieth century

  has discarded the sled and reindeers, and has adopted a “Stevens-Buryea” automobile to speed him safely on his travels over roof-tops. Old Santa is loaded down with Stevens Rifles, Pistols and Shotguns for the youths of the land. There is no more appropriate Xmas present for the rising generation than a Stevens Arm. The possession of a rifle or shotgun means outdoor life and engenders the manly qualities of Decision of Character, Resolution and Self-Control.

  (Social historians have detected a special concern with “manliness” in America around the turn of the twentieth century. Contemporaries felt that the closing of the American frontier had led to a decline in national vigour and a dearth of “self-reliant, prosperous, active, go-getters,” so gifts of guns were encouraged. In a 1911 Daisy air-rifle ad, a lad in need of vigour explained that “Mother likes it because she says it’s safe and Father because it is just the thing to keep me out of mischief and be manly and self-reliant.” Daisy promoted its weapon with the assurance that the “ideal American Santa Claus” will present his child with one of their guns this Christmas – “No smoke, no noise and perfectly safe in the hands of any boy.” In that same year, the Maxim Silent Firearms Company thoughtfully produced a silencer for shooting in the city. During the First World War when the American government moved to restrict the use of metals in non-essential industries, A.C. Gilbert of Erector toys argued successfully that his toys educated boys in how to shoot and build. This manliness craze declined after 1920 when postwar toys for boys tended to be more useful and educational; guns were out, and chemistry sets and radio sets were in.)

  One wonders if companies competed to find the slenderest connection between the product being promoted and Christmas. If so, one of the finalists might well have been Young & Rubicam, an advertising company that in 1935 offered a picture of a winsome tyke, her teddy bear, and a giant candy cane above the caption “There is a Santa Claus.” The connection? “Advertising,” we are told, “like children, is rewarded for being good. And the reward can be a rich one.” Not to be outdone in the gossamer nature of its product’s link to Christmas was Revere Copper and Brass Incorporated and its 1940 ad “How to re-discover Santa Claus!”

  Be on hand early Christmas morning when a very young child comes down the stairs to see what the merry old Saint has brought him. You’ll feel then that there must be a Santa Claus.

  Take a look at the toys spread out under the tree – the streamline trains, the doll house, the telephone, the midget radio set, the model plane, the ships and autos – and see in miniature what makes America happy and secure. You’ll realize then that the gifts Santa brings the children are the same gifts that Uncle Sam provides for all of us.

  And in both the protected world of childhood and the matter-of-fact adult world of our own – copper – man’s metal friend – plays a vital role.

  If you thought that trying to link “man’s meta
l friend” to Santa Claus was a bit of stretch, ponder the shifty manoeuvres of America’s insurance companies. “Will there always be a Santa Claus?” asked the Prudential Life Insurance Co. in 1944 when it connected the future of a toddler and his Christmas stocking to the premiums his father was socking away in life insurance. Three years later the Liberty Mutual Insurance Company presented “It’s Santa Claus!”, the harrowing story of a man driving to church through the winter snow to play Santa Claus for the children when a boy on a sled darted into the path of his car. Fortunately, our hero had been proceeding prudently and was able to avoid crushing the careless tot, leading to a sermonette on safety and a connection to the company motto “We Work to Keep You Safe.”

  The John Hancock Life Assurance Company had a reputation for producing stirring advertisements for life insurance that featured prominent American heroes, such as Abraham Lincoln, Walter Reed, or Andrew Jackson. It was natural then that in 1953 it honoured Clement Clarke Moore, author of “ ’Twas the Night Before Christmas,” with his own ad, the beautiful “He drew the image for all to see,” featuring a reindeer-drawn sleigh flying past the candle-lit window of a nineteenth-century New York mansion. Far less comprehensible is its “I created Santa Claus” of 1952. It begins: “He’s a chubby man with a red suit and a cold nose and a big heart, and everybody knows he isn’t exactly true … Who created Santa Claus? The books don’t know, but I know. I created Santa Claus. Here is my story.” What follows is a litany of mini-biographies from a Roman soldier who refused to crucify Christ; a Philadelphia electrician who drowned attempting a rescue in the Schuylkill River; a First World War German infantryman who threw a chocolate across no man’s land to American troops on Christmas Day 1917; and a schoolgirl who befriended an immigrant child. It concludes: “I am many people. I am not always generous or brave or good. But sometimes I find myself swept away by something stronger than self: the desire to give to others, and to do so with no thought of return. My name is everybody.”*

  Did Santa Claus have scruples? Surely there were vices to which Santa could not lend his good name! In truth, no. Even purveyors of the Noxious Weed and the Demon Rum could count on his goodwill and earnest testimonials. In 1900, Schlitz, makers of the beer that made a certain midwestern American city famous, portrayed Santa Claus admiring a bottle of its product and announcing, “Wherever I go, I find it!” The accompanying text assures the reader that “Wherever children look for Santa Claus, Schlitz beer is known and the standard. In Vladivostok, Pretoria, Shanghai, Singapore, Bombay, Cairo and Constantinople, it is the beer of civilization.… Wherever white men live, Schlitz is acknowledged to be the pure beer.” Nor was hard liquor a novel taste in Saint Nick’s “droll little mouth.” Santa has attested to the virtues of Martini & Rossi vermouth, which in 1938 posed that question pondered by philosophers throughout the ages: “What is Christmas without Santa Claus and what is Santa Claus without Martini?” In that same decade, Santa also found employment with the makers of the French aperitif Byrrh in a number of appearances of which he cannot be proud today – seldom has Santa looked so debauched or louche as he does in these ads for the strangely flavoured beverage made from a rare Peruvian bark. In the mid-1930s, Santa Claus also lent his good offices to Dewar’s distillery in a series of ads that took advantage of his old-fashioned nature to suggest subtly an equally aged character in its White Label Scotch Whisky. Unable to secure the services of the real Santa Claus, Johnnie Walker Red ran an advertisement in 1977 showing a man in front of a mirror trying on a Santa suit that was too big in the waist for him. The connection with the caption – “This Year It’s Especially Natural to Turn to Red” – was tenuous at best. In 1979, Seagram’s made Santa Claus, long known for his ability to distinguish between those who had been naughty and those who had been nice, the arbiter of whether one was sufficiently moral to purchase its rye whisky, with a campaign that featured his hoary head and the caption “Can you look this man straight in the eye and honestly say you deserve Crown Royal?” Thankfully for Santa’s reputation, government officials were hard at work in Ohio. In 1987, when the Anheuser-Busch brewing company proposed dressing its mascot dog, “Spuds Mackenzie, the Ultimate Party Animal,” in a Santa suit and posing him with a bag of Bud Light in a sleigh, the liquor commission drew the line and ordered the beer removed from shelves. In the Buckeye State, no one – neither man nor bull terrier nor giant corporation – can use the image of Santa to hustle booze.

  Santa’s acquaintance with commercial vice did not end with liquor. From the very beginning he was a smoker, and tobacco companies were quick to see him as a natural figure for endorsements. There were a few, such as Prince Albert brand, who capitalized on his long fondness for a pipe, but most wanted him to sell cigarettes and this he did with gusto. During the First World War, Santa carried the banner of the Murad brand, leering dangerously as he puffed away on the Turkish tobacco. In 1921, he was again in its employ, riding bareback on a reindeer. In later years he would testify to the “three firsts in smoking pleasure,” provided by Chesterfield cigarettes; he would assure readers that Lucky Strike was a gift that expressed the spirit of giving; and he would distribute Old Gold (“lowest in throat-irritating tars”) to the troops in the Second World War.

  What of – and here Santa must surely blush – sex? Many printed advertisements of the twentieth century gave the impression that Santa Claus was a bit of a ladies’ man, in a harmless sort of way. Female recipients of gifts were frequently shown giving him a kiss of appreciation (which male consumers were to infer they too might receive if they purchased the product Santa was representing), and women never seemed to mind that Saint Nick saw them in their undergarments. A 1943 illustration for Sweet Caporal cigarettes shows a dazed Santa at the bottom of a chimney while a young women preens in her negligée in front of the mirror. “Well, what now, you old chimney climber?” she asks rudely, intimating a previous acquaintance with the gift-bringer that one hopes could withstand decent scrutiny. “Just a reminder,” says Santa Claus, showing he bears her sauciness no ill will, “give everybody Sweet Caps.” A 1953 ad for Mojud stockings depicts Santa Claus and a lady recumbent among female lingerie. Alas, the days of such innocent insinuation are long past. Since then Santa Claus (or, one hopes, an impostor) has appeared in porn magazines such as Hustler and Penthouse. In December 2000, someone dressed in his outfit was photographed for the cover of Brazilian Playboy with his hands on the breasts of a beautiful dancer. In a heart-warming display of righteous outrage, the government ordered a cover-up, and in Rio de Janeiro, a group of Santas placed a black stripe on their red caps as a sign of mourning. But worse was to come – in 2005 a Czech company announced a new Santa-shaped condom. The ERCO company, noted for their “Special Condoms” and “Condoms with Installed Music” (don’t ask), has added a Santa Claus model. If truth be told, the prophylactic looks nothing like Santa, but it does appear less daunting than its Statue of Liberty condom, is sold in its own clear plastic dome, and is coloured by hand. In light of this brave new world, perhaps we should erect a statue to the memory of the California state senator who in 1935 was disturbed by all the inappropriate products Santa Claus was being asked to endorse. He wished to pass a bill restricting the use of Santa’s image. He found no supporters, but he may have been a visionary before his time.

  Was Santa Claus always an effective salesman? The number of advertisements that feature the saintly gift-bringer seems to have grown over the years. In the first years of the twentieth century, he appeared in 3 per cent to 6 per cent of the Christmas gift ads in the Ladies’ Home Journal and the Saturday Evening Post, and by the 1920s his picture graced 20 per cent of these advertisements. By the 1930s, merchants even began to wonder whether he was being overused. This was hardly likely, if only because Santa Claus was in the public domain and advertisers could employ his services royalty-free. From the 1940s to the early 1960s, Santa was apparently as valuable as ever to merchandisers, with his image being used in up to one-third of the ad
s in Ladies’ Home Journal December issues.

  This does not mean that his job as an adman was secure. Norelco electric shavers had employed Santa Claus in its Christmas television ads for years, sitting his animated image astride one of its razors and skimming him over the snowy landscape. “Noelco [sic],” the ads would chirp. “Even our name says ‘Merry Christmas.’ ” Unfortunately this presentation seemed to suggest to viewers that the company was in the toy business and so in 1986 Santa was dumped in favour of a manly looking fellow shaving to the slogan “We Made Close Comfortable.” The result? Sales boomed and the company expressed no regrets about making its loyal, old employee redundant. His appearance, said the ad agency, was a classic example of how an advertisement could be popular without being effective: “Santa Claus advertising at best created a cute, warm image for the brand, but nothing else.”

  Santa Claus was also given the heave-ho from a series of successful television advertisements by Canadian Tire. In 1982, the retailing giant presented ads featuring the duelling personalities of Santa Claus and Ebenezer Scrooge, the villain of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol. The slogan was “Give like Santa. Save like Scrooge” and the higher concept was that Santa would convert the miser to the spirit of buying things through Canadian Tire’s low prices. After a few years of market testing, the company perceived that “Save like Scrooge” was the stronger part of the equation and dropped Mr. Claus, replacing him with the ghosts of Christmas, such as Jacob Marley, Scrooge’s old partner, who appeared chained to all the overpriced presents he had purchased in Christmases Past. This story has a happier ending than the Norelco debacle: Santa Claus was welcomed back to the campaign in the mid-1990s.