Visit from St. Nick and the Evolution of Christmas

Some vintage pics of St. Nick. I have all these in my possession somewhere in the house……but I put them in a super safe spot and until I come across them by accident…….I’m glad I took pics the last time I saw them.

This little guy is crepe paper and about 20 inches tall I think it goes back to when my mother was a child.

Two greeting cards and a book. The cards are from my childhood. The book was my grandmother’s and it would be well over one hundred years old. She was married in 1922 and she received the book as a gift from her teacher her first year of school.

I have not seen or heard anything in the media that Clement C. Moore’s ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas  aka A Visit from St. Nicholas is 200 years old this year. I have been reading a book The Battle for Christmas a non fiction book by Stephan Nissenbaum.  It’s about how the Christmas celebration was changed from the raucous, overindulgent street carnival for decades in America to an intimate family celebration. In the 1700’s the lower classes would sing and knock on the doors of the upper class for drink, food and money, if they were given generously then their goodwill was to leave peacefully.  Makes me think differently about now give us some figgy pudding and we won’t leave until we get some….. I always thought those verses were silly now I understand. December 25 was just another working day. In an effort to change the celebration to something more respectful in the early 1800’s churches started having services on the 25th and businesses closed.  The church services were intended to get people off the streets. Many of our Christmas carols were written during that time. Sadly church wasn’t enough to change behavior, it was the focus on children and Clement C. Moore’s poem that gradually changed how we celebrate Christmas today. That’s the first 50 pages of the book in a paragraph.

I’m about half way through the book, very repetitious so have been skip reading ( a bit here a bit there…still going on about the revelry in the streets…pick up here blah blah blah commercialization of Christmas with mass manufactured toys….) So far the birth of Jesus and the nativity have not entered the reason for the season in the book but the author did state at the beginning that he is Jewish but then so was Jesus. 

Santa holding the baby Jesus is a good way to wrap up this post. He’s a big guy with room in his heart and the holiday for the baby Jesus.

Joy to the world! The Lord is come Let earth receive her King Let every heart prepare Him room

Merry Christmas

—Ann—