Santa Claus - Thomas Nast - 1855

Santa Claus & Christmas

In the early days of the American Republic, the primary Winter festival was New Year's Day, as it had been for centuries across all of Europe as well.

But in 1809, Washington Irving published a fictional history of New York, intended to entertain and supplement where the young nation was lacking in tradition. It was called A History of New York from the Beginning of the World to End of the Dutch Dynasty, and published under the pen-name of Dietrich Knickerbocker.

In this work, Irving claimed that New Yorkers had inherited from the Dutch the custom of celebrating the Feast of St. Nicolas, held on December 6th. And furthermore, that they would toast to him by his nickname - Sancte Claus.

None of this had a shred of truth to it, but the fictional tradition Irving had created seemed far more charming to most New Yorkers than the actual rites they practiced.

The following year, the St. Nicolas Society was formed to encourage the celebration of St. Nicolas Day. In 1822, a patrician New Yorker and member of this society named Clement Moore wrote the poem "The Night Before Christmas" in which he laid the foundation for the Santa Claus we know today. This "right jolly old elf,' according to Moore, would slide down chimneys on the 24th of December - Christmas Eve by the church calendar.

Interestingly, religious europeans had always been reluctant to celebrate Christmas since it was well known back then that the church had merely named Christmas to coincide with the pagan solstice holidays during the days of the Roman Empire. But New Yorkers were not too pious, and one day was as good another.

Finally, all that was lacking was the visual incarnation of Santa Claus himself, provided in 1855 by the great cartoonist Thomas Nast for Harper's Weekly.