Der Belsnickel Cometh Before St. Nick
With an important purpose and timely message for us all…
“In theory, there is no difference between practice and theory. In practice, there is.” — Jan van de Snepscheut (1986), “overheard at a computer science conference.”
When the “jolly old elf ” made his first appearance (1862) in a Union Army camp during the American Civil War, the modern image of Santa Claus was born. Thomas Nast, the German immigrant who created it, has been unfairly taken to task of late for his allegedly anti-Catholic and anti-Irish caricatures, but the “Father of the American Cartoon” was also Lincoln’s “best recruiting sergeant” and “did as much as any one man to preserve the Union and bring the war to an end” (Ulysses Grant).
Over the next few decades Nast would refine his image of Santa Claus after which Coca-Cola would spend a few decades doing the same thing and selling it to the masses, but it’s worth remembering that Nast’s original Santa came bearing warm socks and entertained Union soldiers with a jumping effigy of Jefferson Davis…
