DECEMBER 24, 1862:
On this
second Christmas Eve of the war, the States of America---United and
Confederate---are subdued. Too many of the menfolk are away from home. Too many
empty chairs will not ever again be filled at the Christmas feast. The
slaughter at Fredericksburg is topmost in many sorrowful thoughts in this cold
holiday season.
Christmas is not yet a public holiday---it will not become
one until 1870, when President Grant authorizes it in an attempt to bring North
and South closer together after the war. But by this time, such present-day
holiday trappings as Christmas Trees and the annual visit from Santa Claus have
already become ubiquitous parts of the celebration. The Christmas Trees of the
time were usually small tabletop ones simply decorated with candied fruit and
candy canes. Gifts were exchanged, North and South, though the South, suffering
from the blockade and privation, had few extravagances. Many giftless Southern
children are told that Santa’s reindeer cannot get through the Union blockade,
or, more ghoulishly, that the Damned Yankees have shot Santa or the reindeer or
both.
This is the year that Thomas Nast
publishes the first “definitive” picture of St. Nick in Harper’s Weekly showing the jolly old elf distributing gifts to
Union soldiers far from home.
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