Mrs Claus is the legendary wife of Santa Claus, the Christmas gift-bringer in Western Christmas tradition.
21 Facts About Mrs Claus
Mrs Claus is known for making cookies with the elves, caring for the reindeer, and preparing toys with her husband.
The wife of Santa Claus is first mentioned in the short story "A Christmas Legend", by James Rees, a Philadelphia-based Christian missionary.
Santa Mrs Claus' wife made her most active appearance yet by Katharine Lee Bates in her poem "Goody Santa Mrs Claus on a Sleigh Ride".
Since 1889, Mrs Claus has been traditionally depicted in media as a fairly heavy-set, kindly, white-haired elderly female baking cookies or mending clothes somewhere in the background of the Santa Claus mythos.
Mrs Claus is sometimes depicted in her youth to have had red hair.
Mrs Claus is usually depicted wearing a fur dress of red or green.
Today, Mrs Claus is commonly seen in cartoons, on greeting cards, in knick-knacks such as Christmas tree ornaments, dolls, and salt and pepper shakers, in storybooks, in seasonal school plays and pageants, in parades, in a department store "Santa Lands" as a character adjacent to the throned Santa Claus, in television programs, and live-action and animated films that deal with Christmas and the world of Santa Claus.
Mrs Claus's personality tends to be fairly consistent; she is usually seen as a calm, kind, and patient woman, often in contrast to Santa himself, who can be prone to acting too exuberant.
In more recent films such as The Santa Clause series, Fred Claus, and The Christmas Chronicles series, Mrs Claus is not always depicted according to the elderly white-haired stereotype, but sometimes appears to be younger than Santa.
Mrs Claus departs even further from the stereotype in more recent films, such as the 2020 Mel Gibson film Fatman, where she is a black woman played by Marianne Jean-Baptiste.
Mrs Claus has appeared as a secondary character in children's books about Santa Claus and as the main character in titles about herself.
In Santa Mrs Claus Is Comin' to Town, she is introduced as a teacher named Jessica, who first meets Kris Kringle as a young man trying to deliver toys to a town ruled by a despot.
Anna Mrs Claus then joins Santa on an improved route around the world.
Mrs Claus appears in A Chipmunk Christmas, where she buys Alvin a harmonica after he gives his old one to a sick boy.
Mrs Claus's identity isn't revealed until the end when Santa returns home and she greets him.
Mrs Claus appears as a character in Duncanville where the eponymous character Duncan Harris has a crush on her and refers to her by her first name "Mary".
The campaign included a three-minute ad released on 11 November 2016 which sees Mrs Claus receiving a letter from a seven-year-old child asking for help with a gift for his older sister, with whom the boy has a difficult relationship.
The brand created a social media campaign in which Mrs Claus answered requests and questions from members of the public.
The ad was directed by Academy-award winner Tom Hooper with Mrs Claus played by British actress Janet McTeer.
In contrast to her stereotypical portrayal, Mrs Claus is portrayed as a woman bored with her relationship with Santa Claus in the song "Surabaya-Santa" from Jason Robert Brown's musical Songs for a New World and in the Oszkars' off-color song "Mrs Claus has a Headache Again".