In the 21st century Christmas has developed from its original intent. This case study will investigate the social construction of the Christmas that we know today. Social construction is a phenomenon that embodies a set of ideas created by society and is acted upon on though cultural and social practices. Two billion people worldwide celebrate the traditionally Christian holiday of Christmas on December 25th. Christmas trees, Santa Clause, gift-giving, and decorations seem to now dominate the holiday form the day after Thanksgiving, known as “Black Friday”, until the start of the new year. In America alone consumers spent 630.5 billion dollars during the holiday season in 2015, and all time high. Christmas is now a consumerist holiday, and
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The ledged traces back to around 280 A.D. to one of the most popular saints in history, St. Nicholas. The name Santa Clause developed as the American version of the Dutch nickname for St. Nicolas: Sinter Klaas. After Irving had described St. Nicholas as the patron saint of New York in his book, Clement Clarke Moore wrote a poem for his daughters entitled “An Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas” in 1822. His poem, well know today as "Twas the Night Before Christmas,” became largely responsible for the image we know hold of Santa Clause. Another New Yorker created the visual representation of the Santa we know today. Thomas Nast political cartoonist for Harper’s Weekly from 1859 until 1886 created to symbol of Santa as well as added to many of Moore’s decriptions, such as inventing the naught and nice list. The final deniftive imagery of Santa Clasue occurred in 1931 in Coca-Cola ad by Archie Lee The Saturday Evening Post. His image of a regal man in a bright red suit and a long white man is the image consistently thought of today as Santa Clause. Between these four Americans the ledged and popularization of Santa Clause was born. Santa is a perfect example of a social construct created by society having little to do with its religious background and becoming more popular as a consequence its more secular
The ledged traces back to around 280 A.D. to one of the most popular saints in history, St. Nicholas. The name Santa Clause developed as the American version of the Dutch nickname for St. Nicolas: Sinter Klaas. After Irving had described St. Nicholas as the patron saint of New York in his book, Clement Clarke Moore wrote a poem for his daughters entitled “An Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas” in 1822. His poem, well know today as "Twas the Night Before Christmas,” became largely responsible for the image we know hold of Santa Clause. Another New Yorker created the visual representation of the Santa we know today. Thomas Nast political cartoonist for Harper’s Weekly from 1859 until 1886 created to symbol of Santa as well as added to many of Moore’s decriptions, such as inventing the naught and nice list. The final deniftive imagery of Santa Clasue occurred in 1931 in Coca-Cola ad by Archie Lee The Saturday Evening Post. His image of a regal man in a bright red suit and a long white man is the image consistently thought of today as Santa Clause. Between these four Americans the ledged and popularization of Santa Clause was born. Santa is a perfect example of a social construct created by society having little to do with its religious background and becoming more popular as a consequence its more secular