Thanks!
Printing that out and passing it around here.
Almost all Christian holidays and traditions turn out to be pagan ones with the serial numbers filed off. As the article mentions, it was savvy marketing.
A lot of people are amazed at how recent detailed ideas like "Santa Claus" and the reindeer are, but their roots go back a long time, too. I was tickled to learn that Santa wears red basically because that's the Coca Cola label color.