It is interesting to see how the images associated with the Christmas season have changed over the years.

The first images were always religious in nature and in keeping with the birth of Jesus. Typical of the theme of those early images is a circa 1520 woodcut of the presentation of gifts to Jesus by the three wise men. The celebration of Christmas began to become a little more secular in the early 1800s. By the 1830s, you see books and other gifts specifically marketed as Christmas presents.

Before the 1800s, Christmas was a mostly religious celebration. Then in 1823, Clement Clarke Moore’s poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas” was published. That was followed in 1843 by Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol,” and in 1863 Thomas Nast’s iconic image of St. Nicholas or Santa Claus first appeared.

Now popularly known as “The Night Before Christmas,” Moore’s poem popularized the notion that it was on Christmas Eve that St. Nicholas traveled on a sleigh pulled by reindeer and came down the chimney delivering gifts. Its popularity grew in the 1830s, but the earliest publication I have seen in Mississippi was in the Woodville Republican on Dec. 23, 1851, under the heading of “A Happy Christmas to All!”

It was in 1863 that Santa Claus took on his modern appearance. Prior to Thomas Nast’s image of Santa being published in the Jan. 3, 1863, issue of Harper’s Weekly there was no set image of St. Nicholas or Santa Claus in use. He might be skinny, or he might be fat. He could have a red suit, or it could be green.

The jolly fat man with a white beard and a red suit was created and popularized by Nast’s yearly illustrations between 1863 and 1886. In the beginning, though, it wasn’t always toys and children that made Santa smile in those first images. In Nast’s first illustration, Santa is handing out presents to Union soldiers with one hand while holding a Jefferson Davis figure with a noose around his neck with the other.

Thomas Nast was a war correspondent/illustrator for Harper’s Weekly during the Civil War and strongly pro-Union. He found that his Santa Claus illustrations were very useful in promoting patriotism and sympathy for the Union. President Abraham Lincoln is even reported to have commented, “Thomas Nast has been our best recruiting sergeant. His emblematic cartoons have never failed to arouse enthusiasm and patriotism and have always seemed to come just when these articles were getting scarce.”

Nast’s last Santa shot at the Confederate leadership came in his double page spread “Merry Christmas To All” in the Dec. 30, 1865, Harper’s Weekly.

(Remember the 12 days of Christmas are the 12 days after Christmas.) In that illustration the heads of Lee and other Confederate generals are pictured on a stage floor around the feet of “Ulysses the Giant Killer.” After 1865, Nast began to picture Santa only as a kind portly man in a red suit bringing presents to children at Christmas.

Then, around 1900 Christmas images started to become even more secular by just showing snowy winter scenes. That trend increased and today Christmas card images are about evenly divided between religious, Santa Claus related and winter wildlife or snowy landscapes. Walt Disney Studio’s head of animation effects, Josh Meador, who was from Columbus, designed Christmas cards that were both religious and secular. He also created small paintings which he gave as Christmas presents in the 1940s and 50s.

One that I have is a snowy landscape on the back of which is written “seasons greetings from Josh Meador and Martin Lowitz.” In the 1950s Lowitz had a gallery in Los Angles that provided paintings for high end hotels and especially for the Hilton chain.

Images that are popular at Christmas have evolved over time from religious to secular. Interestingly the Santa Claus image we know today is Thomas Nast’s Civil War time creation minus the gore.

Rufus Ward is a Columbus native a local historian. E-mail your questions about local history to Rufus at [email protected].