"the modern Santa Claus was invented for a Coca Cola advertising campaign in the 1930s. That's why Santa wears Coke's corporate colors."

Parenthetically, the US version of the Santa Claus suit design can be attributed to the work of Thomas Nast for Harper's Weekly magazine.

It was Haddon Sundblom working for the Coca-Cola Company whose work standardized the western image of Santa, and popularized the image of the red suit with white fur trim.

In some European countries  the "Saint Nicholas outfit remains closer to religious clothing, often including a Bishop's mitre.

The legend of Santa Claus can be traced back to a monk named St. Nicholas, claimed to have been born sometime around 280 A.D. in Patara, near Myra in modern-day Turkey. This legend is centuries older than the modern Santa. The name associated with the original legend is Santa Claus, whereas Santa Clause originated in a 1994 movie starring Tim Allen. 

Citation...Wikipedia (paraphrased for brevity)

"Santa Claus, is of course an imaginary figure originating in Western Christian culture. The modern Santa Claus grew out of traditions surrounding the historical Saint Nicholas (a fourth-century Greek bishop and gift-giver of Myra), as is the British figure of Father Christmas, and the Dutch figure of Sinterklaas(himself also based on Saint Nicholas). Some maintain Santa Claus also absorbed elements of the Germanic god  Wodan, who was associated with the pagan midwinter event of Yule, and led the Wild Hunt, a ghostly procession through the sky."

The story is an apt syllogism of the errant winding path religious myths take from an original myth, as they constantly evolve and change over time, under cultural, political, social and ideological pressures of all sorts.

If an omniscient omnipotent deity wanted to communicate an inerrant message, then it's preposterous to imagine it could ever be remotely distorted from the perfect original. Or become corrupted or errant in any way.

The theistic alternative is a deity that wastes it's time in the certain knowledge its message doesn't match reality, and / or will never be properly represented or understood anyway.

A more rational explanation of why these divine inerrant messages clearly bear all the hallmarks of human fallibility, requires no explanation to any objective reader, as it is manifestly self evident, matches all the objective evidence, and requires no acceptance of any claim for which objective evidence cannot be demonstrated.

That's a load off, I must say. Though I'm a little concerned how easily my grandchildren can Google the Santa Clause myth...I'd worked it out by about 6 or 7 even without the internet to help, when a neighbour dressed as Santa came with my parents to say hello, and only I could be awakened. If they hadn't tried to pretend I might have been fooled, but the real Santa couldn't be a doppelganger for a neighbour I instantly recognised.

I played along of course, in an odd piece of reverse psychology not to disappoint my parents, but to this day my sister insists I thought he was real, though she was only 3 or 4 at the time of course, and I could hardly go back on my affirmation and deny it as a child when my parents asked.

Weird how children that young feel the need to protect their parents from disappointment, and again a useful analogy for the power parents and grown ups can have on children, even unknowingly planting ideas. I like to think I was more of a cynic than most children that age, maybe just ego, but who knows. I may have been born to be an atheist, as it was unavoidable.