http://www.toonopedia.com/santa.htm
Pretty interesting on the Christmas myths.
The modern appearance of Santa began with Thomas Nast, America's premiere cartoonist of his generation. From the 1860s to the '80s, he drew a special cartoon every year for the Christmas edition of Harper's Weekly, the first American magazine to achieve national circulation. Nast's first depiction of Santa appeared in the edition dated January 3, 1863 apparently, it had not yet become media practice to regard Christmas as old news from December 26 on.
He did it at the personal request of President Abraham Lincoln, to show Santa visiting U.S. troops in the war zone. Aside from fully visualizing Clement Moore's version (tho the face is said to have been based on Nast's own), Nast established Santa's North Pole headquarters, along with the legions of elves at work making toys, in his 1885 cartoon.
Contemporary with Nast was St. Nicholas magazine, where (among many other icons of children's literature) Palmer Cox's Brownies rose to prominence. St. Nicholas (which was named after Santa, but there the connection ends) was published by Scribner's from 1873 to 1939.
All this time, Santa generally favored brown fur, but could be depicted in any colors. In 1885, publisher Louis Prang of Boston, who popularized printed Christmas cards, depicted him in a red suit for what may have been the first time.
That version slowly began to take over, and the now-standard image (red suit with white fur trim) emerged in the early 20th century. That image solidified to rock-like hardness when, starting in 1931, The Coca-Cola Company launched its annual Santa-themed advertising campaign, attempting to soften the mid-winter slump in soft drink sales. Haddon Sundblom, a commercial cartoonist in their employ, created Coke's version of Santa, which eventually came to dominate completely.
It was also this campaign that established red (Santa's suit) and green (the Coke bottle he's drinking from) as the Christmas colors.
