Merry Red & Green to All!

Red Baneberry, Actaea rubra, Wyoming.

How did red and green become our Christmas colors? Maybe you're thinking, as I did, "From holly, of course!" But recently I learned otherwise. Though holly has long played a role in winter celebrations, dating back to solstice gatherings of our pagan ancestors, it wasn't until 1931 that red and green became THE colors of Christmas. No longer could Santa wear blue, purple or whatever. He had to dress in red, specifically Coca-Cola red.

Haddon Sundblom's 1931 Santa in Coca-Cola red (Miel Van Opstal, Flickr)

This wasn't the first time Coca-Cola hired an artist to create a Santa Claus. But this particular one "solidified in our collective imagination the red of Santa's robes [which matched the Coke logo] with the green of fir trees and holly and poinsettia that we already had in our minds." (More here.)

I'm fully part of that collective imagination—red and green are my Christmas colors.

Big Leaf Maple, Acer macrophyllum, California.

Sugar Maple, Acer saccharum, Sica Hollow, South Dakota.

Paintbrush parasitic on Sagebrush, Wyoming.

Cobra Lily, Chasmanthe, from Ronn in California.

Planta Claus brings lots of sugars and oxygen ... to those who've been good of course.

See you next year! Hollis & Emmie