Did you know the old man image of Santa—the white-bearded guy with the red suit—was developed by Coca-Cola? Yes. Actually, in 1931, an ad campaign was developed to sell more Coke. True story. Prior to that, the Santa figure had never been pictured in the red suit, with the hat and white beard. The current Santa, who is seen in shopping malls, schools, and even, unfortunately, churches, is entirely modeled after a marketing campaign image. Well, kudos to Coca-Cola for embedding this image as part of the Christmas excitement. Hmm?
The ritual around Santa—parents bringing their children to a stranger dressed in what little ones consider scary clothes—a child is placed on Santa’s lap, and then children are instructed to tell him what they want as their special gift. The idea of kids being set onto the lap of a stranger, a man, has its roots in sexual grooming. What??? Yes. Let me tell you about Santa before the commercialized Santa.
He was developed around the circumstances of orphans. He would visit orphanages, and if they behaved well, they would get a small gift; if not, they would get coal or a beating from a demon who apparently traveled with Santa with a handful of sticks. Want to hear something crazy? My mom, who lived in Germany for a few of her childhood years, would tell us about the sticks—she called them faggots—or the coal we might be receiving to get us in line and curb our excitement before Christmas. Santa was a guy who watched orphans, not so much part of the family culture.
If we go back to perhaps the original St. Nicholas, well, he was apparently a mixed bag. He came from a wealthy family and rose in the church to the status of Bishop. During the Nicene gathering, where the Nicene Creed was being established, there was an argument over whether God should be referred to as one or three. Bishop Nicholas got so angry he slapped another clergy member hard across the face. For this, he was stripped of his bishop’s robes and imprisoned.
After this, there are two stories about him and children. One is of three young women, likely teenagers, whose father did not have dowry money. The father had decided to unload his daughters and sell them. We can make a good guess what being sold as a girl back then meant. The story goes he threw two bags of gold in the window, and on another night, one more bag of gold, which went through the chimney, ending up in a boot sitting by the fireplace.
A second story is about three young boys who were possibly cut up, intending to use their bodies for meat, and St. Nicholas miraculously reassembled their bodies.
With these two stories, I wonder how he got to know of these children, who in nowadays terms would have been trafficked children.
The revised costume, when the church decided to promote his memory to sainthood, included a sash bearing the Knight Templar cross. The Knights Templar were not entirely God-loving folk but have ties to worshiping dark gods… more to come soon.
Santa tests as Satanic. There are stories of Santa using his big bag not just to deliver toys but to fill the bag with stolen children.