When Americans catch a glimpse of Santa Claus — whether in movies or at a shopping mall — he usually looks the same. He's rotund, sporting a long white beard and a fluffy red-and-white hat.
But what if Santa was a handsome, fit guy in a red quarter-zip?
That's the version of Santa Claus that Target imagined in a recent series of commercials featuring the handsome "Kris from Target." This Santa has a beard, but it's silver and neatly trimmed. And while we don't get a close look at his physique, he looks like he hasn't skipped chest day at the gym.
According to the New York Times, Target's "Kris K." — short for Kris Kringle — is a massive hit online. Some on social media have dubbed him "Hot Santa."
"Sara, did you hear that? It was Santa Claus, and he's weirdly hot," a shopper exclaims to a friend in one of Target's commercials, which debuted last month.
Bruce Forbes, a retired professor of religious studies at Morningside University in Sioux City, Iowa, wrote the book Christmas: A Candid History. He says he's never seen Santa portrayed in quite this way, but Santa Claus has been shape-shifting in our popular imagination for hundreds of years, taking on new meaning — and different physical appearances — as his story has migrated across the West.
Forbes says the holly-jolly man we today know as Santa sprang from Saint Nicholas, a Greek bishop of the fourth century who, according to legend, tossed bags of gold into the home of a destitute Christian desperate to save his daughters from prostitution. The Dutch took that story and created Sinterklaas, a bearded man in a red cape who distributes candy to children on horseback. The Dutch brought Sinterklaas to New Amsterdam — today called New York — in the 17th century.
"So we morph Saint Nicholas into Santa Claus here in the United States — and not all at once. It's little by little," Forbes says.
A combination of cultural shifts, capitalism and creative license combined to create the Santa we know today, Forbes says. American writer Washington Irving made an enduring contribution to the legend with his 1809 satire, A History of New York, which imagines Saint Nicholas as a founding father of Manhattan. (Forbes says that's why many Christmas tales — most notably Miracle on 34th Street — take place in New York City.) The 1823 poem A Visit from St. Nicholas described Santa as an elf. During the Civil War, Harper's illustrator Thomas Nast depicted Santa as a Union Army sympathizer — and later as a round, red-faced man bearing toys for children. By the 1920s, Christmas had become a commercial enterprise, with help from American department stores and Coca-Cola.
"Santa has already become standardized [at that point], and his colors are red and white," Forbes says. "And by the way, what are the colors of Coca-Cola?"
But pop culture hasn't overhauled Santa in an enduring way since last century. Many Americans seem attached to the version they're accustomed to, Forbes says.
Take former Fox News host Megyn Kelly, who famously declared in 2013 that Santa Claus is white. Forbes says his first reaction to that remark was, "How do you know anything about Santa? Because Santa has changed so much over time."
The retired professor says over his many years studying major American holidays, he's begun to view them as "three-layer cakes."
Many holidays start as seasonal celebrations, meant to usher in a harvest or give people a reason to gather during the dark winter months. Then religion or government comes in and adds a new layer of meaning on top of it, he says.
"The third layer is modern popular culture," Forbes says, "and whatever modern popular culture does to these holidays is really strange."
The radio version of this story was edited by Adriana Gallardo, and produced by Ana Perez and Barry Gordemer. Majd Al-Waheidi produced the digital version.
Copyright 2024 NPR
