Here Comes Santa Claus...

...Here comes Santa Claus, right down Santa Claus Lane...

Santa Claus Lane ca. 1928

In 1928, store merchants on Hollywood Boulevard decorated a mile stretch of their street between Vine and La Brea and renamed it Santa Claus Lane. In an effort to lure shoppers downtown, businessman Harry Blaine and the Hollywood Boulevard Association called the thoroughfare the "world's largest department store," and installed 100 live pine trees in planters covered with twinkling lights. If that weren't enough, they devised a nightly parade where Santa, pulled in a carriage by six reindeer and accompanied by a Hollywood film star, waved to the crowd as they passed. Eventually tin trees took the place of the live trees (which were planted on the grounds of the Hollywood Bowl), and then more elaborate trees came after those. There was also a period where tinsel wreaths framing portraits of movie stars lined the street as well (in the third picture below, Claudette Colbert puts the finishing touch on a wreath featuring herself).

Over the years, the parade grew in size and attendance with more floats and more movie stars. In 1946, cowboy film star Gene Autry rode his horse in front of Santa and heard the excited cries of children in the crowd exclaiming, "Here comes Santa Claus!" From that experience, Autry wrote one of the most enduring holiday songs, "Here Comes Santa Claus (Right Down Santa Claus Lane)." While the extravagant decorations are no more, the parade still exists! What started life as the Santa Claus Lane Parade, and renamed as the Hollywood Santa Parade, is now known as the Hollywood Christmas Parade.

Fashion Santa

Mature and supremely handsome editorial and runway fashion model Paul Mason is a new kind of "mall Santa" at the Yorkdale Mall in Toronto, Canada. And for every selfie with Mason/Santa that gets posted on social media using the hashtag #YorkdaleFashionSanta, the Mall will donate a dollar to the SickKids Foundation. If you're in Toronto, drop in and snap a picture with this gorgeous man...it's for a good cause! He only has a few more appearances scheduled: December 18th and 19th from noon to 8PM, December 20th from 11AM to 7PM, and December 23rd from noon to 8PM. And if you do, tell me how he smells... I am hoping for a Dolce and Gabbana cologne mixed with a delicious beard pomade...

Mason as Santa at the Yorkdale Mall: instead of a bright red velvet coat, it's a slim-cut burgundy velvet Ferragamo jacket; instead of fur trim, it's a Tartan cashmere wrap. I love his style sensibility since I dress exactly like this in the winter! If I grow my beard, we could be twins (almost).

And check out the Mr. Claus campaign he did for the exclusive Mexican department store El Palacio de Hierro!

Holiday Animation 2014

I grew up watching things like this every December...

Vintage Santa Claus

From a CNN Eatocracy interview with Phil Mooney, Coca-Cola's Vice President for Heritage Communications:

Eatocracy: What is Coca-Cola’s connection with the modern-day Santa Claus?

Mooney: Coca-Cola had an artist named Haddon Sundblom who worked for us from 1931 to 1964. Each year he would create an advertising piece that would show Coca-Cola and Santa Claus and because the ads appeared in all of the popular magazines of the day, his interpretation became the American vision of what Santa Claus looked like.

Eatocracy: What were the paintings based on?

Mooney: The essence of the paintings were based on Clement Clark Moore's 1822 poem "'Twas the Night Before Christmas” Prior to Sundblom’s depiction, there were various interpretations of Santa in the mainstream media. In some depictions, he was a dwarf-like character, in others he was full-bodied but did not enjoy what he was doing. So that is where Sundblom built on the poem and created the happy Santa Claus who loves what he is doing, loves children, pets and has a bit of mischievousness in his character. He is the embodiment of the holiday - of a time to be with your family and friends.