The next morning, the children of the house find an abundance of gifts for them, and the couple is revealed to be not "old Santa Claus and his wife", but the hosts' long-lost elder daughter and her husband in disguise.

[4] A passing reference to Mrs. Santa Claus was made in an essay in Harper's Magazine in 1862;[5] and in the comic novel The Metropolites (1864) by Robert St. Clar, she appears in a woman's dream, wearing "Hessian high boots, a dozen of short, red petticoats, an old, large, straw bonnet" and bringing the woman a wide selection of finery to wear.

In the story, little Lill describes her imaginary visit to Santa's office (not in the Arctic, incidentally): Later, Lill's sister Effie ponders the tale: Much as in The Metropolites, Mrs. Santa Claus appears in a dream of the author Eugene C. Gardner in his article "A Hickory Back-Log" in Good Housekeeping magazine (1887), with an even more detailed description of her dress: Mrs. Claus proceeds to instruct the architect Gardner on the ideal modern kitchen, a plan of which he includes in the article.

[12] British company Marks & Spencer received positive attention for their 2016 marketing campaign based on a modern feminist interpretation of Mrs.

[15] In 2023, Sheryl Lee Ralph became the first celebrity and the first black woman to play Mrs. Claus in the history of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.