When Santa Was Younger
When Santa was younger, a long time ago,
he didn’t wear red like the Santa we know.
His suit wasn’t ruby, as most people think.
His suit wasn’t scarlet, or crimson, or pink.
No, young Father Christmas appeared on the scene
dressed up in a suit that was totally green.
His emerald-green suit and his mistletoe crown,
back then, were an outfit of worldwide renown.
The children believed in him all the world over
and knew that his suit was the color of clover.
But one day, his wife saw a lovely red suit
and bought it for him since she thought it was cute.
Poor Santa did not like this change of routine.
He wanted to wear his original green.
And maybe Saint Nick would have gotten his way
and could still be wearing a green suit today,
except when he put it on, Mrs. Claus said,
“I like you in green, but I love you in red!”
That one little comment was all that it took
for Santa to say that he liked this new look.
From then on, he clothed himself only in red.
He even repainted his famous green sled,
and chuckled, explaining, “I have no regrets.
What Mrs. Claus wants is what Mrs. Claus gets.”
— Kenn Nesbitt
Copyright © 2024. All Rights Reserved.
Reading Level: Grade 4
Topics: Christmas, Holiday Poems
Poetic Techniques: Imagery, Narrative Poems
Word Count: 214
About This Poem
Many years ago, up until the mid-1800s, illustrations of Santa Claus often showed him wearing a green suit, or sometimes a tan suit. But in 1863, an illustrator named Thomas Nast created a painting of Santa Claus wearing a red suit for a magazine called Harper’s Weekly. This image proved to be so popular that, from then on, Santa was almost always portrayed in a similar red suit. Here is that painting:
In 2019, I was approached by the editor of a fashion and lifestyle magazine called Sorbet, asking if I could write a poem about how Santa’s suit changed from green to red because of advertising by the Coca-Cola Company. I wrote a much longer version of this poem which they published in their “Red Rhapsody” issue.
While it is true that an illustrator named Haddon Sundblom painted many pictures of Santa Claus in a red suit (for Coca-Cola advertisements), he was not the first to do. Thomas Nast painted a red-suited Santa nearly 70 years earlier.
Because the poem I wrote for Sorbet was quite long, and written more for grown-up readers, I decided to cut it down a bit and take out the parts about the Coca-Cola Company. I thought the best reason for Santa to change the color of his suit would be because Mrs. Claus thought he looked better in red than in green.
I hope you enjoy the result!
Use This Poem
Would you like to use this poem in your classroom? Would you like permission to reprint, record, recite or broadcast this poem, or set it to music? Please click on one of the following links for permissions and reprint rights information:
