TulaneLSU's Christmas Pilgrimage X: Top 10 Decorations Dillard's

My dearest of dear and beloved friends,

Today is December 6, 2019, the feastday of Saint Nicholas, of current day Turkey. The OT may be particularly interested in St. Nick because he is the patron saint of repentant thieves, prostitutes, pawnbrokers, archers and fishermen, and even pharmacists. Born to rich parents, he was known to secretly give great gifts. When his wealthy parents died, he directed that their fortune went to the poor. Most notably, when a certain father could not afford the dowry for his three daughters and knew his daughters might be sold into prostitution, St. Nicholas, in the stealth of the night, tossed three bags of gold into their house so they might be married.

Nicholas was a great defender of the true faith of Christianity. Present at the First Council of Nicaea in 325, he ardently defended the theology of the Trinity. He is even rumored to have slapped that horrible heretic, Arius, across the face for spreading the lie that Jesus, the Logos, was not in the beginning and is not of the same substance as the Father. I’m not a violent person, but I cannot help but applaud Nicholas for slapping the sin out of Arius. So you do not become confused, the wonderful 2007 Finnish film Christmas Story, available on Prime, tells a fable fantastic yet false of the origin of Santa Claus. Speaking Christmas films available on Prime, I just finished watching Snowed Inn for Christmas. In the surfeit sea of Lifetime and Hallmark holiday films, I have to say it’s the best Santa based movie I’ve seen in a long time, perhaps since Arthur Christmas. It’s easily the best Lifetime movie I’ve ever seen.



St. Nicholas mostly disappeared from Protestant Europe after the leaders of the Reformation frowned upon hagiographies and veneration of the saints. Nicholas’s absence continued in America. The Dutch of New York were the first to bring him back. In 1810, they celebrated December 6 as the Festival of St. Nicholas. It wasn’t until 1822, though, that the jolly, red-cheeked sleigh-riding gift giver Santa Claus appeared. Clement Moore, an Episcopal professor at the General Theological Seminary in Chelsea, wrote his children a poem for Christmas, basing this figure on a paunchy Dutchman, a neighbor during his childhood. This poem, something worthy of fr33manator, “An Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas,” you’ll quickly recognize.

'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through 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;
The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads;
And mamma in her ’kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled our brains for a long winter’s nap,
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.
The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow
Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below,
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer,
With a little old driver, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name;
"Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer and Vixen!
On, Comet! on, Cupid! on, Donder and Blitzen!
To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!"
As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky;
So up to the house-top the coursers they flew,
With the sleigh full of Toys, and St. Nicholas too.
And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound.
He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot;
A bundle of Toys he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a pedler just opening his pack.
His eyes—how they twinkled! his dimples how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow
And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow;
The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath;
He had a broad face and a little round belly,
That shook when he laughed, like a bowlful of jelly.
He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself;
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread;
He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And filled all the stockings; then turned with a jerk,
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose;
He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle,
But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight,
"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night."

In New Orleans, the first mention I can find of Santa Claus is 1841, in a poem that borrows heavily from Moore. This Times Picayune printed bit describes "a merry fellow is old Santa Claus who comes without civility of knocking.” J.B. Kling’s Cajun Night Before Christmas, published in 1973, borrows even more extensively from Moore in tone and descriptions. Unfortunately, the Santa of Louisiana is almost entirely a New York creation.

This newly minted Santa myth bore little semblance to Saint Nicholas of history, save for his generosity. He also bumped the regional Christkindel and Belsnickel figures in Pennsylvania. The new Santa seemed to prefer the urban to the pastoral. Moore’s Santa served a generic American Protestantism, teaching children the importance of good deeds and nudging them to believe in the invisible, to have faith, if you will. In my view, this new Santa was much like an entertaining, if not theologically meager in construction, children’s sermon.

At this same time, the search for the historical Jesus was the subject of many a dinner conversation. David Strauss’s Life of Jesus (1835) was a best-seller, and several key non-Christian discoveries, which authenticated the historical Jesus, were made. This historical quest made the birth of Jesus a topic of theological discussion for the first time in centuries. The trickle-down influence led to the first commercial Nativity or manger scenes sold in the States. Santa and manger scenes were to be the new core symbols of the national holiday, bringing together both the profane and the holy in an American mishmash of generosity and joy, myth and truth, municipal and bucolic.