The Defenders of Santa Claus

The following charmed illustration appeared in the December 8, 1898 edition of Life Magazine and speaks for itself. Merry Christmas and a Happy Holidays to you all!

Stalled!

Arthur T. Merrick provides this charming image from the Dec. 2nd, 1899 issue of Life Magazine. Merry Christmas to all, and I hope Santa makes it on time!

The Rankin/Bass Holiday Special Cinematic Universe

Since the Marvel Cinematic Universe became a billion dollar franchise, there have been many attempts at replicating its success with every available intellectual property lying around. Marvel did not invent the concept of an interlinked series of films and television shows, however. Between 1923 and 1959, Universal Studios produced 72 horror films that eventually wove together in the ongoing battles between Dracula, the Wolfman, and the Frankenstein Monster. Toho Studios in the 50's, 60's, and 70's eventually linked all of their giant monster movies together into a single "Showa Era" continuity headlined by Godzilla. Another studio to try their hand was Rankin/Bass, who produced the preeminent series of holiday specials beginning with 1964's Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.  

A Christmas Dinner with the Man in the Moon

Could there be any more pleasing a Christmas dinner than one spent in the mansions of the Moon's prime minister? Or a more charming Christmas evening that one spent with Uncle Jack telling you about it? Thus comes Washington Gladden's delightful tale of a trip to the lunar surface aboard the Great Aerial Line, the ways of life of its inhabitants, and a scientific mystery that the arrival of earthlings has solved.

A Christmas Dinner with the Man in the Moon was published in the December 1880 edition of St. Nicholas Magazine and is presented here in full, with original illustrations by Victor Nehlig. Gladden, a Congregationalist minister most famous as a pioneer of the Social Gospel movement, a unionization advocate, and anti-segregationist, was also an author of hundreds of poems, stories, and religious tracts. A Christmas Dinner with the Man in the Moon resurfaced in Gladden's 1894 anthology Santa Claus on a Lark: and Other Christmas Stories. Click on each page for a larger version.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas with Georges Méliès

Over the hundreds of subjects that Georges Méliès covered in his hundreds of films, Christmas was bound to come up a few times. The following are a pair of those Yuletide shorts. Merry Christmas to all!

The Christmas Dream (1900)

The Christmas Angel (1904)

Christmas a Hundred Years From Now

The following sample of prophecy appeared in the Summit Country Journal of Breckenridge, Colorado, USA, on December 18, 1909. Now 119 years later, and ten whole years after the predicted date, we can enjoy looking back and seeing how accurate these imaginings were (like its prediction that automobiles will go extinct as humankind takes solely to the air for transportation). Click on the image to see an enlarged version.

Santa in 2007

The following illustration by E.B. Bird comes from an issue of St. Nicholas Magazine published in 1907 and is entitled Santa in 2007. So that's how he does it these days! Click on the image for a larger version. And Merry Christmas to all!

The Victorian Invention of Christmas

On the odd occasion when I am asked what the greatest invention of the Victorian Era was, I tend to step sideways on it. Yes, various industrial, scientific, entertainment, and transportation technologies are interesting, but I think the best invention of the Victorian Era is the middle class. The idea of the bulk of persons in a society standing between obscene wealth and dire poverty, being able to enjoy opportunity and the fruits of their education and labour, to experience personal freedom as a birthright rather than a class privilege, is a remarkable idea virtually unprecedented in human history. For my second favourite Victorian invention, I may have to say Christmas.

Victorian card of Father Christmas
in his traditional green coat.