If you’ve entered my blog today, the Wednesday before Christmas, then I’ve got a real treat for you. And it’s not here! There’s a party going on right now over at Two Talent Living’s Carnival of Beauty — and you’re invited. Sallie’s topic this week, “The Beauty of Tradition” elicited responses from 15 lady bloggers — and I have been blessed from head to toe reading some of these.

And here’s something I’ve already learned. From Iris at her “Sting My Heart” blog, she wrote a beautiful submission for the carnival, as well as another on celebrating Weihnachten in Germany. She did some research on the origins of Santa and sent me to this article, Saint Nicholas and the Origin of Santa Claus, where I read something I’d never heard:

But it was in the 1930s that the now-familiar American Santa image solidified. Haddon Sundblom began thirty-five years of Coca-Cola Santa advertisements which finally established Santa as an icon of contemporary commercial culture. This Santa was life-sized, jolly, and wearing the now familiar red suit. He appeared in magazines, on billboards, and shop counters encouraging Americans to see Coke as the solution to “a thirst for all seasons.” By the 1950s Santa was turning up everywhere as a benign source of beneficence. This commercial success has led to the North American Santa Claus being exported around the world where he threatens to overcome the European St. Nicholas, who has retained his identity as a Christian bishop and saint.

Another site says this is an urban legend — but still — it’s given me something to ponder.