It's time for a festive edition of the recurrent theme 'e-mails people have sent me that are just plain stupid'.
Today we cover the one doing the rounds that tells us that the modern image of Father Christmas was invented by Coca Cola for an advertising campaign in the 1920s.
Utter bollocks.
The basis of Father Christmas or Santa Claus (once separate individuals but, thanks to the Yanks now the same person), was the anonymously published poem 'A Visit from St Nicolas' (better know as 'Twas the night before Christmas' In this poem Santa is established as a fat bloke with eight reindeer (who are named for the first time) who travels by sleigh and tends to use chimneys as his portal rather than the conventional door.
One of the first artists to depict Santa Claus' as we would recognize him was Thomas Nast in 1863. He was shown in many coloured outfits, but the now common red garb wasn't prevalent. It was a Boston based printer, who was trying to get the British custom of sending greetings cards adopted in the US, who really cemented the red-suited Santa in the public consciousness with his 1885 Christmas Card.
But fear not, my cynical friends, there is an aspect of Christmas that was thought up by the evil world of Advertising. Jesus was invented in 1939 to promote a department store in Chicago.
Now go and listen to David Bowie and Bing Crosby singing 'Little Drummer Boy'. That'll put you off Christmas....
(Did I say Jesus, sorry, I meant Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer... I confuse easily....)
