HOW COCA-COLA CHANGED SANTA'S TROUSERS (From Barry And District News)

HOW COCA-COLA CHANGED SANTA'S TROUSERS

WHAT would Christmas be without the jolly fat man in the red suit who squeezes down our chimney to give out the gifts? Santa Claus is as much a part of our festive traditions as the pudding and the tree. But unlike both, his true origins are far more recent - and have a lot to do with the most popular fizzy drink in the world. Santa is based on St Nicholas - Sinter Klaas - a Turkish bishop brought to America by Dutch people.

He was famous for throwing a purse of money over the wall of a poor man to help his family; it fell into one of his daughter's stockings hanging by the fire to dry, which is where our own tradition comes from.

According to superstition, Santa's stocking should always contain an apple, meaning health, an orange for prosperity and a shiny coin for wealth. Saint Nicholas was the patron saint of children, as well as of sailors, pawnbrokers, parish clerks - and thieves! In Holland, he gave good children presents, and bad ones a birch rod, so he was not always the popular visitor he is today.

St Nicholas was often depicted wearing green robes, which harked back to pagan times. Remarkably, the jolly bloke with the red suit who climbs down chimneys was invented by Thomas Nast in a Christmas cartoon in the American magazine Harper's Weekly in 1863. And his fur-trimmed robe was replaced by trousers and long black boots for a Coca-Cola advert which changed the big man's image forever. It was also the Americans who gave Santa his sleigh; in Europe, he usually made his way around on foot.

In the days before Santa Claus, Christmas was mostly for grown-ups with dancing and spicy food - but no presents or stockings. After St Nicholas, people used to swap gifts on his day, January 6, a tradition which is still kept up in many European countries. Some of the earliest presents handed out by Santa in Victorian times were boots for barefoot children - toys did not come along for poor children until much later.