My favourite quotation by William Shakespeare comes from his play Twelfth Night:
“Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.”
It goes to the idea that most of us never know what mark we will make on the world---because it doesn’t come from our own efforts, but by happenstance, by chancing to be in the right place at the right time. This year’s Christmas account is of such a man, a man whom we’ve all seen and welcomed warmly at this time of the year.
But not for himself.
In fact, he is so far down in the dustbin of history, you won’t know him by his full name---Lou Prentiss. (Sure, you can Google him if you want, but that would take all the fun out of reading this article.) Yet, I guarantee that, at some time during the holiday seasons of your life, you’ve seen his face, and remember it fondly.
Lou Prentiss lived and worked in Chicago during the early years of the twentieth century. He was a large man, with a round face and a cheerful smile. Lou was as jovial in personality as his appearance, and that was an asset to his work as a salesman. And he was a successful salesman, so much so that, by 1931---in the midst of the Great Depression and when there was not yet Social Security---he was able to comfortably retire. For most of us, retirement is the twilight of our lives, but for Lou Prentiss his appointment with destiny awaited.
One afternoon in the early autumn of 1931, Lou was visiting his neighbour, a man who went by the nickname “Sunny”. Sunny was a commercial artist, working his own hours, and had plenty of time socialise with his good friend, Lou. However, on this day, their conversation was interrupted by a telephone call. On the other end of the line was an executive from the D’Arcy Advertising Agency. D’Arcy had taken on a new client that had been experiencing difficulties in marketing its product in the colder seasons. Previous ad campaigns had failed, and it hired D’Arcy to find something that would work.
Could Sunny, asked the D’Arcy executive, come up with an image to make their new client’s product sell during the holiday season?
Sunny accepted the commission, and even as he replaced the receiver, the wheels began to turn in his head. Deep in thought, Sunny glanced over at Lou, and his friend responded with a jolly smile. A light bulb went off!
Even if you didn’t Google Lou Prentiss’ name, you’ve surely guessed that we’re talking about Santa Claus.
But that’s just the beginning.
Lou’s neighbour, the man all of his friends called “Sunny”, was Haddon Sundblom, a highly talented and much-sought-after commercial artist. A master of the alla prima technique, or “wet on wet” method of painting, Sundblom had created illustrations for print ads that had turned such clients as Maxwell House and Nabisco and Quaker Oats into household names. One reason for their success was that Sundblom’s paintings, in curious connexion with his nickname, were always upbeat, featuring wholesome, happy, robust characters. They boosted the morale of consumers during the trouble-stricken days of the Great Depression.
And, now, at the behest of a new client, Haddon Sundblom was going to tackle Santa Claus. To be sure, Sundblom did not create the modern image of Santa Claus. The groundwork for that had been laid in Clement Clark Moore’s A Visit from Saint Nicholas in 1823. Moore’s poem described St. Nick thusly:
His eyes---how they twinkled! His dimples, how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And the beard of his chin was as white as the show . . .
He had a broad face, and a round little belly,
That shook when he laughed, like bowlful of jelly.
He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf . . .
Nearly forty years later, it was another commercial artist, Thomas Nast, who provided the first visual representation of St. Nicholas. From 1862 to 1886, Nast produced over two thousand illustrations of Santa for the popular magazine Harper’s Weekly. It was these drawings that cemented the accepted appearance of Santa Claus.
Moore and Nast’s descriptions of the “jolly old elf” inspired Haddon Sundblom, but he was going to put his own spin on it. His Santa would be more human, warmer, and evoke the gaiety of the Christmas season. Those qualities he took from his friend, Lou Prentiss.
As a result, his version of Santa Claus would become the most memorable. The definitive Santa. The one that probably comes to your mind when you think of Santa Claus.
Figured it out, yet? Well, here’s the capper. As talented as Sundblom was, the preëminence of his Santa had as much to do with his new client as it did his art.
That new client was---Coca-Cola!
What?, you might be thinking. Coca-Cola is one of the greatest-selling products of all time. No matter where the economy stands---bull, bear, recession, depression---Coke sells. Why would it be desperate for a new ad campaign?
Here’s the thing: in the early twentieth century, Coca-Cola sales had risen steadily---overall. But there was a pattern to its success. Each year, in the spring and summer, when consumers were attending baseball games, going to the beach, or just sitting around the house (remember, homes didn’t have air conditioning in those days), they were doing it with ice-cold Cokes in their hands. But when the chillier months of autumn and winter rolled around, Coke sales dropped off.
The suits in the executive boardroom did not want Coke to be a seasonal drink; they wanted it to be a sensation year-round. And nothing would advance that idea further than to promote Coca-Cola as a holiday drink. They had tried that the year before, in 1930, with a Christmas print ad showing a department-store Santa enjoying a Coke break. But the art had been stiff and sterile, and it didn’t make much of an impact on the consumers.
So, Coca-Cola turned to the D’Arcy Advertising Agency, hoping it could produce a Santa Claus who was wholesome, human, and reflected the joy of the holiday season. And someone at D’Arcy knew that sort of thing was squarely in Haddon Sundblom’s ballpark. That led to the fateful call when Sundblom just happened to be sitting around, chewing the fat, with his friend, Lou Prentiss.
Standing Lou in front of his easel, Sunny copied his neighbour’s twinkling eyes, rosy cheeks, broad smile, and plump girth. The artist used his own imagination to add the flowing, white whiskers and traditional red suit. And Coca-Cola’s kinder, warmer Santa Claus, full of mirth and merriment, was born.
Sundblom’s Santa débuted in Coca-Cola’s 1931 Christmas print advertisement with the copy “My hat’s off to the pause that refreshes.” (Aye, Sundblom created that famous Coke slogan, as well.) They appeared in the most popular publications of the day, such as The Saturday Evening Post, The New Yorker, Ladies’ Home Journal, and National Geographic. This Santa captured the sparkle and magic of the Christmas season, and he became an instant hit with the public. Coca-Cola sales for that winter more than doubled those of the previous years. Perhaps more important, the sheer joy of the character raised the spirits of a country mired in the hardships of the Great Depression.
Haddon Sundblom’s Santa featured in Coca-Cola’s Christmas advertisements for the next thirty-five years, delivering (and sometimes playing with) the popular toys for that year, raiding the icebox, and greeting children who stayed up to serve him a Coke. He became a staple of the season. And still is. Most of us, my fellow Legionnaires, are of an age that, when we think of Santa Claus, it’s that image that comes to our thoughts.
But maybe not quite the same one. Lou Prentiss modeled Santa Claus for Sundblom’s Coke ads every year, until 1952, when Lou passed away. For the Christmas ad that year, and thereafter, Haddon Sundblom looked in the mirror and painted his own face. It was a near thing, though, especially under all that beard, and one has to look hard to tell the difference.
The last Sunny-painted Santa appeared in the Christmas season of 1964, with the company’s “Things Go Better with Coke” campaign. Haddon Sundblom died in 1976, with almost no-one knowing that he forever defined for the image of Santa Claus that all of us remember nostalgically.
Well, him and Lou Prentiss.
* * * * *
From Cheryl and myself, to all of you, our fondest wishes for a Merry Christmas, and many more of them!
Replies
Another wonderful article, Adam. Every year I wonder what topic you will choose, and every year I am surprised but never disappointed. Last year I offered a book recommendation in exchange for your essay, and that seemed to work out pretty well, so this year I'll follow up with a new book (2025), Useless Etymology.
Have you ever considered that an "astronaut" is a "star sailor," or thought about the fact that a thesaurus is quite literally a "treasure trove" of words?
Have you ever wondered why English isn't considered a Romance language if more than half of our vocabulary is Latin-derived?
Did Shakespeare really invent 1,700 words, and if not, why the heck do we say that he did?
Why is the English language stuffed with so many synonyms?
Let's be real: English can seem pretty bonkers. And, well, sometimes it is. But through thorough thought and a pinch of curiosity, method can be found within the madness of our modern tongue-even within the disparate pronunciation of the words "through," "thorough," and "thought."
English contains multitudes. It has been (and continues to be) transformed by war and conquest, art and literature, science and technology, love and hate, wit and whim.
Useless Etymology takes readers on a time-traveling adventure to unlock the beauty, wonder, and absurdity within our everyday words, how they came to be, and the unexpected ways their origins weave a global, cross-cultural labyrinth of meaning.
Filled with fun facts and delightful discoveries, this is an enlightening read for anyone who wants to know more about why the English language works the way that it does.
Commander, I knew about 75% of that story - but it took your relating to put it together for me into one coherent legend. Listen, speaking of greatness, my friend...
May you and the GMB enjoy the finest of holiday season festivities. and have a splendid year of 2026! (I'll be writing 5785 on my checks for weeks... :) )
Jeff,
Thank you for the kind words---and for the recommendation of Useless Etymology. That's a definite buy for me. Unfortunately, it will have to come fourth in my reading list, after the book you recommended last year, Grandiloquent Words. And that book is third on my stack, right behind two other books on grammar and the English language: Strictly English and Scarcely English, both by Simon Heffer. My opportunities to read pretty much arrive in waiting room, when I take the GMB on her medical appointments, so I'm only a little more than halfway through Strictly English. But I'm learning a great deal about the slivers of technicalities between words, such as the difference between proven and proved. The former is an adjective, such as "It's a proven fact"; and the latter is a verb, such as "His account was proved false.") I keep a folder of grammar details on my phone, and the notes from Heffer's book keep piling up there.
We have another cruise planned for April of next year, and I usually get a book or two completed then.
Eric,
Thank you for your well wishes. I take them very kindly. I hope you and yours had the best of the past holiday and wish you a healthy and rewarding 2026!
A great read as always, Commander. I had such a great family celebration yesterday that I did not get to it until today. I hope your Christmas was the same.