Christmas of Red Colours

If you were told to visualize Christmas with your eyes closed then what are the few things that you would think about? Snow covered supreme white mounds of snow, on top of it Santa Claus, a robust old man with long white beard adorning a red and white suit, reindeers, children with gifts and in modern connotation lot of shopping in the malls where everybody is flocking to the shopping centres trying to buy gifts for their near and dear ones, after all this is the time that one exchanges gifts that are always welcome by everybody.

Actually speaking Santa Claus colour is closely associated with the Christmas tradition. It adorns many decorations, television shows, greeting cards, and many Christmas TV shows and also movies related to this huge festival. Actually speaking; traditionally enormous figures were associated with this festival in varied countries depending on the associated traditions of that country, but ‘Santa Claus Full of Colours’ is always the underlying theme of the Santa’s dress as it is associated with celebrations and jubilations that actually mark the occasion.

However the present colour of Santa Claus emerged in the year 1820, where Santa plays the lead role in the story ‘A Visit from Saint Nicholas’. With the emerging popularity of this story along with the recognition of the character with Christmas there was a conglomeration of the image of Father Christmas with the present identity of the Santa Claus. During the 19th Century itself there were various images of him that were published in the media that made him into a very pleasant figure (though there is no doubt about it!) as a gift giver and toy maker in accordance to the request of the children. In the subsequent years the illustration or the representation of Santa Claus became standardized with red suit, with flowing white beard and red hood. It became so evident that even if anybody would ask a small little child as to ‘What color is Santa Claus’ suit’ they could easily say red or may be point towards the red colour even if they do not know how to say the word ‘Red.  Though many people feel that the association of Santa with Red colour can be associated to Coca Cola which was used by the company to boost its sales of the beverage, however this does not seem to be authenticated with the historical facts.