1:23pm Sunday 25th November 2007
SANTA is going green - quite literally - as the Forestry Commission gets set to launch its eco-friendly Christmas tree sales point in Dalby Forest.
Fragrant pines, firs and spruce will be available in the 8,600-acre wood near Pickering, daily from December 1 to 21, 10am-4pm. But there's a colourful new twist to a festive forest trip this year!
Santa, who will be in his new forest grotto, has dispensed with his red garb and instead opted for a natural look, donning long green flowing robes and a crown of hawthorns.
For despite popular belief - this is the "true" British Santa. It was Coca Cola who popularised the rotund red Santa figure we know today as part of a 1930s marketing exercise. Before this green was the traditional colour of the "British" Father Christmas.
He was a figure dating back to at least the 17th century, possibly fused with earlier Celtic traditions. Period pictures portray him as a bearded man, dressed in a long, green, fur-lined robe.
He typified the spirit of Christmas cheer and inspired the 'Spirit of Christmas Present' in Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. It's also reckoned that St Nicholas, famous for his generous gifts to the poor, and still portrayed in Europe as a bearded bishop in religious robes, also inspired our old-time Santa.
Recreation manager Katie Thorn said: "A green Santa might seem odd to our eyes, but only a few decades ago this was the accepted image of Father Christmas, whatever Hollywood might like to think.
Somehow, it seems more traditional, with roots which probably go back many hundreds of years. We reckon a green Santa is the perfect cheer leader for our eco-friendly tree sales."
Santa will be in his grotto in the new visitor centre on the weekends of December 8 and 9 and December 15 and 16, when there'll also be a reindeer trail, horse and carriage rides and a chance to make your own Christmas trimmings.
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