DAY 2 – INA AND SADIE’S EXCELLENT FARMHOUSE CHRISTMAS

Santa before Nast

As a young woman just graduated from high school, Ina became a certified teacher and taught one year in Oregon before the family moved to Idaho. She and Jack had married on Christmas Day, 1891, which ended all hope that she would teach again. But, when they moved to Gilbert in 1896, they were able to establish a school district immediately because she was a certified teacher. She taught the students in her log cabin home. The next year, they were able to hire a full-time dedicated teacher. A farm wife had plenty of work at home, and besides, in those days the prevailing belief was that a school teacher should not be a married woman.

Anyway, back to our story set in 1935. Ina sat at the dining room table mending Jack’s glove. She hoped one of the children would provide a new pair for Christmas. Yes, leather-faced gloves were always on Jack’s Christmas list.

When she finished her mending, she picked up the little cookbook Sadie had discovered in the closet. As a teacher might do, she scanned it quickly. She thought it likely that Sadie would want to try the recipes and suggested activities, and she wisely wanted to be prepared.

The teacher in Ina liked to learn and then share her knowledge with others. The appearance of the little cookbook was a perfect opportunity to learn about illustrator Thomas Nast and the development of the modern Santa Claus. For that research she would need another book, but you could read about Nast here. On a hunch, she found the needed information in the magic “cubby hole” closet. (Yes, the elves provide for adults, too.)

Nast, an American caricaturist from 1860 until the 1880s, was the father of the political cartoon before he became the father of the modern image of Santa Claus. Working for Harper’s Weekly in New York City, he came to exert considerable political influence. Many people of that time couldn’t read, but they could understand the message of Nast’s cartoons, which meant that among the politically powerful, he developed enemies as well as friends. With a change in editorial policy at Harper’s as well as changes in the technology of publishing cartoons, Nast’s work was gradually phased out and by 1886, he was out of a job. Poor investments brought him to financial ruin from which he never recovered.

In 1889, friends at Harper’s suggested he publish a book of his Christmas sketches, which had evidently appeared in Harper’s from time to time. Nast was grateful for the idea and published Thomas Nast’s Christmas Drawings for the Human Race in time for Christmas 1890.

Norman Rockwell's impression of Santa

A short heavy-set man, Nast patterned the image of Santa after himself. His children (he had five) served as models for his family scenes. Many of his illustrations were suggested by Clement C. Moore’s poem, “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” also called “The Night Before Christmas.” However, Santa’s North Pole workshop is attributed to Nast’s imagination.

“Well, well,” said Ina to herself. “How interesting!” KW

[The Nast images and biographical information here are from Thomas Nast's Christmas Drawings, with an introduction by Thomas Nast St. Hill, published by Dover Publications, 1978, essentially a republication of Thomas Nast's Christmas Drawings for the Human Race.]