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Around 125 years ago, Coca-Cola was analyzing its sales and noticed people drank Coca-Cola in the summer, a little in the fall and spring, but not in winter. They realized Christmas wasn’t a big focus, and Easter was the more important holiday at the time. Coca-Cola advertisers wondered how to get people to drink Coca-Cola in the winter too and decided to tie Coca-Cola to Christmas.
They took Santa Claus—by that point, the Catholic Church had considered decanonizing him for lacking miracles—and merged him with Saint Nick and Kris Kringle. Kris Kringle was a Danish thief who, as a chimney sweep, could pop his shoulders out and fit down a chimney, rob a house, and then work his way back up to leave a clean chimney. They removed Saint Nicholas from the traditional portrayal, who was usually a young man in green and brown, and reimagined him as part of Coca-Cola’s branding. They gave Santa Coca-Cola colors—red and white—and added pink in his skin to maintain those colors, turning him into an old man with white hair. This resulted in Santa Claus appearing on Coca-Cola bottles and cans around Christmas.
As a result, Christmas became an emotionally central event, with a mythical figure who drinks a lot of Coca-Cola bringing presents. The shift implied that the average Christian in the United States would now view Christmas as the important Christian holiday. This also pressured other religions to consider which holidays to promote during that time period, such as Hanukkah. Hanukkah, while important, had not previously drawn the same level of focus or energy, and Jewish families with children who wanted a Christmas tree looked for alternatives to compete with the Christmas appeal.