The History of Santa Claus & Father Christmas — just a bit of seasonal fun :) http://www.arthuriana.co.uk/xmas/index.htm pic.twitter.com/4xRzxR5MFm
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'I Am Here, Sir Christëmas', a 15th-century carol with a very early personified Christmas: http://www.hymnsandcarolsofchristmas.com/Hymns_and_Carols/i_am_here_sir_christemas.htm …pic.twitter.com/4CZvfO2OYc
'The Examination and Tryal of Old Father Christmas' (1686): https://luna.folger.edu/luna/servlet/s/06w881 … & http://www.hymnsandcarolsofchristmas.com/Poetry/examination__and__tryal_of.htm …pic.twitter.com/N3GRvDkkMh
Dickens's Ghost of Christmas Present, by John Leech, 1843, a version of Father Christmas & dressed in green: https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Scrooges_third_visitor-John_Leech,1843.jpg …pic.twitter.com/v5CJkhlqI5
A Victorian-era German 'Father Christmas' with a foliage beard.pic.twitter.com/aQoQ822ASl
Old Christmas on the cover of the 1842 Christmas supplement to the London Illustrated News: http://www.iln.org.uk/iln_years/year/xmas2.htm …pic.twitter.com/zEGn81Ijjs
Turning to look at St Nicholas/Santa Claus, an article on Stephen Nissenbaum's research into the early 19th-century American creation of Santa Claus & the sanitisation of Christmas: http://www.threemonkeysonline.com/christmas-reborn-the-creation-of-a-consumer-christmas-professor-steven-nissenbaum-in-interview/ …pic.twitter.com/zY7SV7q8Pw
A very early illustration of 'Sante Claus' from The Children's Friend, William B. Gilley, 1821: http://www.stnicholascenter.org/pages/origin-of-santa/ …pic.twitter.com/E5RY5akOUz
Robert Weir's painting of St Nicholas, c. 1837: https://americanart.si.edu/artwork/st-nicholas-27465 … For more on this painting and the Knickerbocker interest in reinventing St Nicholas/Santa Claus, see https://www.jstor.org/stable/3050448?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents …pic.twitter.com/VrjzqMnbTA
St Nicholas/Santa Claus before Thomas Nast—illustrations to Moore's 'Night Before Christmas' by Louis Prang, 1864: http://www.americanantiquarian.org/Exhibitions/Christmas/prang.htm …pic.twitter.com/3ncaTOsFlP
Thomas Nast's illustrations for Clement Clarke Moore's 'A Visit from Saint Nicholas', 1869: http://www.americanantiquarian.org/Exhibitions/Christmas/nast.htm …pic.twitter.com/sEo6hjUz4N
Thomas Nast's Santa Claus and his Works, c.1869: http://www.stnicholascenter.org/pages/origin-of-santa/ …pic.twitter.com/m1fEqQFpi9
The American Santa Claus as a Christmas gift-giver was first noted in England in 1879—19th-century folklorists initially puzzled by him, not knowing who he was, with one guessing it was ‘Santa Cruz, the Holy Cross’ which brought the presents: http://www.arthuriana.co.uk/xmas/pages/history.htm …pic.twitter.com/GHj7DKbYsi
By the late 19th/early 20th century, the English Father Christmas and the American Santa Claus had become interchangeable & largely indistinguishable...https://twitter.com/caitlinrgreen/status/942154297172688896 …
Old Father Christmas riding on a Yule goat, 1836, & Father Christmas as gift-giver on an English postcard of 1919: https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Old_Christmas_riding_a_goat,_by_Robert_Seymour,_1836.jpg … & https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Father_Christmas,_Tuck_Photo_Oilette_postcard_1919,_front.jpg …pic.twitter.com/wiK0W71uVo
By the early twentieth century, the American Santa Claus had also spread to Japan, as seen in this image of a modern-looking Santa Claus from 1914: https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1914_Santa_Claus.jpg …pic.twitter.com/WUoCQVOXdD
Worth noting, incidentally, that the modern-looking Japanese Santa dates from well before the first Coca-Cola Santa ad campaign in 1931; see further https://www.snopes.com/holidays/christmas/santa/cocacola.asp … on the myth of Coca-Cola's creation of the modern Santa :)pic.twitter.com/AevhgcswHL
Before he started endorsing Coca-Cola, a very modern-looking Santa Claus had previously endorsed White Rock mineral water and ginger ale… (images from Life magazine, Dec 1923 and Dec 1924): http://www.whiterocking.org/santa.html pic.twitter.com/p3yR0zkZTE
Santa endorsed products well before White Rock and Coca-Cola too — here's the label from a box of Santa Claus Sugar Plums, 1868: https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Santa_Claus_Sugar_Plums,_1868.png …pic.twitter.com/HRumKbVcqb
The first of J.R.R. Tolkien's letters from Father Christmas, 1920—although he used the English name for the Christmas visitor, he also made liberal use of elements from the American Santa Claus lore and included both elves & goblins: https://theconversation.com/amp/j-r-r-tolkiens-christmas-letters-to-his-children-bring-echoes-of-middle-earth-to-the-north-pole-89464 …pic.twitter.com/lTDazanRHu
'Twas the night before Christmas, when all thro' the house Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse; The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there… (pic=http://www.americanantiquarian.org/Exhibitions/Christmas/mcloughlinedition.htm …, 1896)pic.twitter.com/XMhtB6ibFA
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