🎅

Santa Claus Emoji 🎅

White beard, red suit, red hat with a white bobble — St. Nick as everyone pictures him. He turns up all through December for Christmas countdowns, wish lists and gift-giving posts, and works the rest of the year as instant shorthand for the holidays whenever somebody is already thinking ahead.

What 🎅 means

Depicted here is the face of St. Nick, known better to the world as Santa Claus, the legend who is known to bring presents and joy to kids all over the world during Christmas. Santa Claus is universally characterized by his long, white beard and his festive red hat. This emoji is quite literally the symbol of the Christmas spirit.

On some platforms, 🎅 Santa Claus' white beard may be replaced by a yellow one.

How and when to use it

If you want to convey that you’re excited about Christmas, 🎅 works best, along with the Christmas tree emoji.
An act of generosity can be represented by the 🎅 emoji, conveying that a person was “playing Santa”.
🎅 can also freely be used when talking about winter.
The image of Santa Claus is that of an old man, so you can use 🎅 to convey that a person, especially a man, has become or is becoming old.
There’s a certain warmth about the character of Santa Claus that cheers people up. Therefore 🎅 can be used to lift the spirits of someone when they’re feeling low.
Apart from that, 🎅 can be used for almost absolutely anything Christmas related. For example: In an invitation to a Christmas party.

Other Names

🎅 Santa Claus
🎅 St. Nick
🎅 St. Nicholas
🎅 Jungle Bells
🎅 Christmas
🎅 Celebration
🎅 Christmas spirit
🎅 Father Christmas
🎅 Sinterklaas
🎅 Ho ho ho
🎅 Happiness
🎅 Joy
🎅 Festival Spirit
🎅 Holidays

🎅 in real conversations

What does 🎅 mean outside of December?

Instant holiday shorthand, dropped the moment someone's already thinking ahead to Christmas — a countdown post in October, a "can't believe it's almost that time" comment in September. It also gets used loosely for an older man, or for someone being generous out of nowhere and "playing Santa" with a gift or a favor.

Did the red Santa suit come from a soda company?

No, that's a persistent myth. Illustrators like Thomas Nast were already drawing Santa in red decades before the famous soft-drink ads of the 1930s; the company popularized an existing look rather than inventing it. 🎅 keeps that same red suit regardless of who people think should get credit for it.

Why do people call a friend 🎅?

Usually "you're getting old" or "you played Santa for someone" — the character's whole image is an older man with a white beard, so it doubles as a gentle jab about age. It can also flag generosity: someone quietly covering a bill or surprising a friend gets called 🎅 as a compliment.

The lowdown

Category: People & Body › person-fantasy
Codepoints: U+1F385
Emoji version: Emoji 0.6
Shortcodes: :santa::santa_claus: Discord
Keywords: celebration, Christmas, claus, fairy, fantasy, father, holiday, merry, santa, tale, xmas

How it looks across platforms

Seeing a blank box instead of the emoji somewhere? Here's why that happens. Curious why the designs above don't match to begin with? Here's why that happens too.