Christmas celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ, the savior of the world.

Green represents the tree that would provide the wood for the cross that he was crucified on and red represents his blood that was shed to save us all from our sins.

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Green is because life, plants and especially holly has been a staple of winter festival throughout history. Red because Coca-Cola is very very good at marketing, and ran a campaign where Santa wore red. Now, christmas is half-red.

Green comes from the norther European traditions of decorating with evergreens for the midwinter festival, presumably because of the association with the rebirth of spring. Red probably because of colour contrast. But it’s noteworthy that when Christmas trees became popular in the U.K. and then the USA gold was the usual colour of ornaments.

So, like all things it evolves over time.

Yeah, to my knowledge, Coca Cola designed Santa’s suit and whole look in general.

Use of red predates Coca-Cola by like 10 centuries. Coca-Cola popularized the exact image of Santa that exist right now, but they didnt come up with it, they just picked one that was good for their brand. Same with using red as a symbol of Christmas.

Yes, all colours make an appearance of some sort in some holiday tradition. Appearance of widespread red is Coca-Cola's doing.

As a someone from a European country, when red has been part of Christmas imagery before Pemberton´s grandparents were even born, no. Both red, green and gold are all related to christian imagery. It has nothing to do with Coca-Cola.

Classic reddit answer... Incorrect, just to give the eye roll/wink to fellow redditors with hate boners for corporations

Well, it's the npr answer. Do you have a better cited answer?

https://www.npr.org/2016/12/20/506215632/how-red-and-green-became-the-colors-of-christmas

Coca-Cola is attributed to the red/white Santa suit, not red and green being the defacto Christmas colours. That article says that too.

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This definitely is not it, saying that as someone who grew up Catholic.

Even if the colours were tied to Jesus, why would the symbolism represent his death when the season is about his birth?

Some basic critical thinking proves your theory wrong.

Coca-Cola didn't even invent the red and white Santa suit. It dates back to at least the early 20th century.

I think the red is from holly berries which are red and appear in many traditional solstice celebrations.

Santa was depicted in all sorts of colours, so while Coke may not have been the first, because of their marketing reach they're the reason why the red/white suit became Santa's suit globally.

All they did was help solidify it as "the Santa look" I was born in 80 and raised by my grandparents who were born in the early 30s. They had some old Christmas decorations with a blue Santa and a green Santa.

Coke ran with the red Santa because it matched their company colors (red woth white trim, and red with white letters) and they made it the more popular color pattern for Santa, but in no way created it.

This is what I'm thinking. Red from berries associated with the plants the pegans associated with the winter festivals

Remember, Christmas was co opted by Christianity to ease conversion of the pegans into the religion. The Christians should be celebrating the birth of their lord and savior... I believe it's somewhere mid summer.

Please tell me this is a purposefully trolly answer. Because if you believe this you don't even know your own religion.

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Most Christmas traditions are based in Pagan roots. Yule logs, holly, mistle toe, feasts, winter solstice... nothing to do with jc, and everything to do with super old school traditions.,

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Also getting high as shit

Plus cardinals, I don’t know if it’s everywhere but cardinals are kind of a winter symbol where I live

Off Amanita muscaria?

Yesssssssssir. That’s where the red/white color scheme originated, they’re also the “presents under the tree”, commonly found under firns and wintergreens. The shaman or saint who we’ve generalized as “Santa claus” would feed them to his reindeer to neutralize the toxins through their piss, then while drinking it it seem like they began to fly as he gets higher. Not to mention the “elves” that he’d meet during this intoxication, who’d give him metaphorical “gifts” to bring back to whoever it was that he was helping. They were witch-doctors after all, and they essentially heal mental health issues by asking someone what was wrong, and then tripping about it before coming back and telling them what they thought they should do. Then they ride off into the snowy night on a sled pulled by reindeer, which may also look like it’s flying in the dead of night while it’s snowing on the oh-so-magical Winter Solstice celebration and the locals are loaded up on wine and ale. Santa is real baby, just not in the way we’ve been taught.

Of course there are a few problems with telling people you know what’s best for them, including the growth of organized religion, but hey now you know where we get some of our Christmas symbolism :)

It comes from the Celtic people who used to decorate with red and green holly - holly was supposed to keep things beautiful during the winter and signify the coming spring/new life. The first recorded representation of using the color scheme was in a 14th century church where the partitions were painted red and green around Christmas time.

But then, the guy who Coca-Cola hired to drew Santa took the red and ran with it. He's actually the reason Santa is depicted the way he is (jolly, big man with red suit and white hair/beard). Before that, he was not as big and his attire varied in color.

Edit to add: some people are really mad that I was incorrect about Coca Cola pioneering the red color lol I went on a deep dive about Santa because I have nothing better to do today and the red color of the suit was cemented in this order:

-sometimes being portrayed in red or red accents in historic images -> Twas the Night Before Christmas poem in 1823 -> Nast took that depiction and solidified it after a few different iterations (including a miniature Santa) -> Coca Cola hired Sondblum and marketed the ever living shit out of this image and it stuck with pop culture.

Santa is an amalgamation of three different European mythological figures/saints and stemmed from winter feast traditions and originally was robed in white (with red accents), blue, green or tan, with red becoming more popular in 17-1800s.

If you want more facts and nuance, I suggest looking further than Wikipedia and doing a deep dive yourself. His ancient self from pre-Chrsitian eras is actually a neat and interesting figure.

It has pagan origins from the Celtics druids who chose the holy plant or holly which has the crimson red berry against the green backdrop, which symbolizes man coming from nature. The berry represents the blood of man from nature, the green leaves. Christmas was celebrated as a celestial event by peoples across the globe and time.

Cardinals only live in the Americas, so while they'll have become a Christmas icon there, they're not well connected to it in Europe.

Europe has the European Robin however, affectionately called the Robin Redbreast in the UK, which has long been associated with Christmas and featured on some of the first Christmas cards.

The European Robin is mostly sedentary, so it doesn't migrate to warmer climates in the winter. When the trees are bare of leaves, it's quite easy to spot a Robin with it's colourful chest against the greys and whites of winter. This makes them quite an iconic image of winter.

It became a staple part of the modern Christmas tradition which started in the 1800s in the UK. It's certainly fair to say it's one part of why the colour red is associated with Christmas time.

Green for plants, red for animals = life.

Also, uh, pagans. Green for goddess, red for god.

In Rome we see them all the time

Very interesting! I wasn’t sure if cardinals were everywhere or not but funny how it’s basically the same icon just didn’t bird

AFAIK red was a commercial addition from the likes of Coca Cola who advertised Santa in red.

Wait….so coca cola, invented santas drip?

Yes, per official Coca-Cola FAQ.

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No, that's a hoax. The popular depiction and tale of Santas came way before Coca Cola even existed: https://fakehistoryhunter.net/2021/12/03/coca-cola-did-not-create-santa/

https://www.stnicholascenter.org/who-is-st-nicholas/origin-of-santa

When we think of traditional colors certain times of the year, those are actually the colors of nature at that time. In the wintertime, the trees you do see are evergreens. The only colors you generally see are bright red berries from an assortment of trees and shrubs. In the spring, the pale flowers that first come up are the colors we associate with Easter and spring clothing. In the fall, the fields and trees and squashes, including pumpkins, are the colors we think about with thanksgiving.

Edit- to add, many will point out the historical roots of Christmas trees, but those were still generally based on what was available in nature.

More accurately, the early Christians replaced the local solstice celebrations with Christmas when they were vying for the minds and souls of the population. (Addition: How can you compete with the local religion if your holidays aren't anywhere near as good?)

That's why in English we celebrate the Paschal Holy Day under the name of Eostre, the goddess of dawn. (And rebirth [spring], and fertility [hence eggs and bunnies].)

False on the red santa. A quick Google search shows he was repeatedly shown wearing a red coat before that guy drew Santa.

this link says that they did not

It's not false and I never said he wasn't drawn in red. Prior to the Coca-Cola marketing, he was drawn as a slimmer man in green, blue or red (but mostly green or blue) suits and not always with a giant beard or sack. The designer from Coca-Cola marketed his new design so well that now, we almost exclusively see him as a fat, jolly, bearded man in red. Coca-cola is the reason that when someone says "Santa" the image that most people immediately think of is this and not this or this.

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This is the only correct answer in the thread. All the nonsense about pagan festivals is just people inventing a backstory that doesn't exist. It's just a cultural development, and isn't universal at all. Christmas colors in Eastern Europe often lean into the light blue of frost and ice.

Here's a thread on how thoroughly modern, at most 500-600 years old, Christmas celebrations are.

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/rfijy0/pagan_traditions_in_modern_christmas/

Not true, as a Saint he was mostly portrayed in red. Yes he was also shown in other colours but again mostly red. Also the image we associate of him nowadays was thanks to Thomas Nast of Harpers Weekly which Haddon Sundblom of Coca-cola copied.

Origins of Santa

That thread specifically acknowledges that the use of greenery predates the more modern customs and is the one thing that could, reasonably, be described as being of older pagan origin.

Red was a pretty common color for Santa/Father Christmas to wear long before Coca Cola even existed. Check out this version Santa Claus, really pretty similar to the modern version, published 24 years before the Coca Cola company was founded.

As the various visual concepts of Santa Claus/St. Nicholas/Father Christmas coalesced into a single character, those ads probably helped push the needle towards red becoming the only color he ever wears, but the concept had already been kicking around in the public consciousness for centuries, and there's no reason why it couldn't have ended up settling on an image pretty similar to what we have now without the help of Coca Cola's commercials.

It's impossible to know. There's nothing "pagan" about decorating with greenery in the winter. It's like saying that using potpourri is pagan because ancient people used bowls of fragrant plants in their houses and temples too.

I mean personally I think "pagan" is a wildly misapplied word, but I think people mean "it's a cultural thing from prior to the time of Christianization". So the question is basically, is the use of holly and other greenery around this time of year something that is specifically supposed to represent a biblical thing? Or is it something people were already doing and it just got coincidentally associated with Christmas due to the timing?

And I think you'd agree the latter is accurate. And that's what people are trying to get at when they say "it's a pagan thing" even though it might not be related to any religious practice.

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We can say that there has been cultural continuity; that the Christmas season celebrations are obviously descendants of the feasting and drinking that was done by pre-Christian people during the darkest time of the year... because we are their descendants. Cultures rarely get immediately shorn of certain elements or immediately take them up.

The holly plant has been used by Romans, druids, Norse... people all the way back into pre-history. It was reinterpreted as a Christian decoration with Christian symbolism by Christian converts. Druids thought that holly would protect a home from natural disasters. Christians don't believe that but have used holly to represent Jesus' crown of thorns. That's just cultural evolution.

What I'm saying is, that's what people mean. That's what they're getting at. They're saying it isn't a Christianity-specific thing like a nativity display is. That is unabashedly Christian.

But instead of writing two paragraphs about the meaning of cultural continuity, they use a shortcut they saw other people use: "it's really just a pagan tradition".

In Christian usage, "pagan" meant "whatever the people who aren't Christians yet are doing".

Except, they generally use it derogatorily, or as if it is some sort of "gotcha." As if the Christian symbolism is somehow inauthentic while the Druid symbolism, for example, is somehow authentic. Which is wrong. These things have evolved dozens of times and go right back to pre-history. Nobody stole it from anyone else, and no one's interpretation is inauthentic.

I agree with your perspective, but disagree with the assumption that the use is derogatory or a gotcha. I think it's usually used to indicate that an irreligious celebration is fine, because after all the traditions don't have their root in the religion anyway. At least, that is my viewpoint. I'm an atheist but I like celebrating Christmas as a secular holiday. Things like a Christmas tree don't feel weird because they're not Christian in origin anyway; there's no overt Christian symbolism going on. I would not ever set up a nativity scene, though; that would feel extremely weird to me because it's obviously an expression of a faith I do not have.

I believe the "gotcha" aspects are, in fact, a reaction to the "keep Christ in Christmas" people. There are people who believe that the secularization of the holiday is wrong and offensive. It's at that point that people are ready to come out swinging about how so many aspects of the celebration did not emerge from the religion itself. It's not so much a "gotcha" as an Uno reverse card. People aren't slagging on a holiday they probably enjoy themselves for being inauthentic, they're defending themselves against people who insist that the non-Christian aspects don't belong. And from what you've stated, I'm sure you agree that they do belong, because this is a cultural thing more than it is a religious one.

Yes because St Nicholas and St Basil we’re both archbishops. And hence wore red. Just like catholic cardinals do. In orthodox religions red symbolises man and his mortality and blue is the spiritual side of man/god.

But the holly and it’s berries are the reason for red and green.

Linking an article whose only cited source is Wikipedia does not make something comprehensive or factual. That said, I was wrong about who coined the red suit, but you are also incorrect that Santa was often portrayed in red prior to this.

Reading further into the actual Wiki article, Nast pioneered the red color of his suit into mainstream, however looking at other sources cited, Santa's suit being red is actually attributed to the poem A Visit from St Nicolas (also known as Twas the Night Before Christmas) from 1823. Nast took that depiction as inspiration and put it out on the market and Sundblom did the same for Coca-Cola which cemented it in pop culture.

Based on sifting through multiple other (non-wikipedia) sources and transcripts online, the figure of Santa is based on St Nicolas (from European folklore) who was mostly depicted in white saintly robes with accents of red, Father Christmas (from ancient English traditions) and his clothing was usually tan, blue or green, and Sinterklaas (from the Dutch) who was also portrayed mainly in white saints robes with a red cape/hat. Up until the 1800s, he was very rarely portrayed in red, and that's because up until the Victorian era the myth and depiction of "Santa" as we know today was in the process of growing and changing/melding with other cultural portrayals to get what we have today.

That's not actually mote accurate, just more detail

I think that most solstice celebrations are not Christmas celebrations.

I also think that Odin and Zeus are not the same, so I can see that some might think I'm being overly pedantic. But if you admit to any religious significance to any of the solstice celebrations, then they are not Christmas.

hey op i think you would like this tiktok that explains the origins of christmas in relation to a indigenous russian tradition, i know your question is about red and green, this is more red and white based, but mentions pine trees specifically which as we all know are sometimes called "evergreens"

enjoy!