That is Priceless by Steve Melcher for December 23, 2022

Product placements is one way Santa gets funds to run his sweat… workshop.

“I’m obese and diabetic but what the heck, I have to have my fix.”

Santa’s not obese. He’s all bladder by morning!

/// All those cola drinks Santa Claus sneaks,

sipped with sugary cookies, bespeaks

the probable reason

that each Christmas season,

it’s rosacea which ruddies his cheeks.

One night a year Santa ignores his A1C numbers!

Things go better with Coke.

Why are so many criticizing the eating habits of a 1700 year old? What possible medical evidence is there for suggesting A1C, diabetes, or obesity are an issue for people over 1000?

Well, he did say he wanted “something cool, dark and curvy”

It’s strange to remember Sundblom’s usually mild pinup girl advertisement art as my pre-adolescent ideals of what pretty teenagers and young women should be vs. how I perceive them today — 50-plus years later. The flowers still bloom, but they’re not along the paths that I stroll anymore.

Was the “freaking” at all needed here? Makes the author sound like an illiterate.

This looks like the guy I saw at WallMart yesterday…..of course he was wearing sweat pants and an old Jane Fonda workout T-shirt with holes in it. Some things you just can’t unsee.

Growing up when I did, this is the quintessential image of Santa to me.

Mr. Claus, a most popular Saint/

In this painting exposes the taint/

Of his willing adoption/

Of commercial co-option/

So “saintly”? Well, maybe he ain’t…///

His endorsement Is eagerly sought/

For the trust of the masses he’s caught/

To your young sons and daughters/

He sells sugar waters:/

Santa Claus can clearly be bought!

One fears there will come a day/

(And it may not be far away !)/

When logos- quite garish/

(In a manner “NASCAR-ish”)/

Will festoon the sides of his sleigh !

He could have had both in the same package until 1929 ;)

Dear Santa, It wouldn’t hurt you to drink a DIET Coke once in a while. Love, the Reindeer.

Funny

♫ Santa’s favorite soda? / A pre twenty-nine Coca Cola / In the mor-or-ning! ♫

There’s an anecdote from World War II where a British mobile workshop that was low on fuel asked the Americans to send them a half ton of coke, and they got…

Judging by the color of the beverage and of Santa’s cheeks, that’s rum in that bottle, and Santa is now more loaded than the sleigh.

Well if it was original formula…

No wonder he is so jolly!

Well, yes, it looks like Coke. But then so does Scotch.

Mama when I return I need more than this, I will need lots of schnapp’s!

Coca-Cola Santa: 

https://museum.oglethorpe.edu/exhibitions/sundblom/ 

and 

https://www.illustrationhistory.org/illustrations/coca-cola-santa 

have info about this illustration. Due to copyright issues with images of works by this artist, who passed less than 70 years ago, I can’t post it to Wikimedia Commons.

 

Again, a larger strip image is shown by (Ctrl- or right-) clicking the image in Mr. Melcher’s MASTERPIECE #3049 (December 22, 2022) blog entry, accessible by the Check out the blog! box after the last comment, and using the dropdown menu (even larger if you trim what’s after .png from the URL). I have added a comment there pointing to info about this artist I used to point to here. First work by this artist used here.

The original COKE was great!

before coca-cola ads Santa was usually pictured wearing green and brown

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to Steve Melcher, Call me Ishmael, Solstice*1947, Bookworm, and all the commentators who help make this strip… priceless.

More time off?

It’s the real thing. Santa and the big lie, not so much.

Yeah, but the bubbles tickle his nose!