Jasper County Democrat, Volume 19, Number 74, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 December 1916 — Where Did Santa Claus Come From? [ARTICLE]

Where Did Santa Claus Come From?

THESE post-Christmas days shine with a light softer but perhaps more comfortable than that of the great feast itself. Particularly is this true of the first day after Christmas, especially when that day Is Sunday. In England, of course, as in the time of the late Samuel Pickwick, Esq., who brought about the renaissance of Christmas, this is called boxing day, not because it is the occasion of fistic encounters, but because it is the time appointed for the distribution of those more or less spontaneous expressons of good will which are called Christmas boxes. Its more orthodox title is St. Stephen’s day. It is, you knew, the day on which the illustrious King Wenceslaus, wdth the assistance of his page, did his noble almoning. We are not old English kings, so instead of having our page bring flesh and wine to the poor man on St Stephen’s day we give a dollar to the youth from the still vexed Bermuthes who chaperons the elevator in our apartment house, and for weeks before Christmas we aflix to the flaps of the envelopes containing our letters little stamps bearing so called portraits of St. Nicholas of Bari. TheoTetically this last process provides a modicum of Christmas cheer for certain carefully selected and organized poor people. - However this may be, the fact remains that the day after Christmas is a very good day indeed. The excitement of giving and receiving has passed away; there remains the quieter Joy of sober contemplation. And when the day after Christmas is Sunday this contemplation will not be disturbed by the arrival of the postman, who, a relentless bill brlnger, Is, like the Greeks, to be feared even when bearing gifts. And, in spite of the remarks of every humorist who ever borrowed from his mother-in-law 2 cents to put on an envelope which should carry a Joke about her to an editor, this post Christmas meditation nearly always is pleasant. It Is assisted by the consumption of wife-bestowed cigars, which (again despite the humorists) are better than a man buys for himself. It is a pleasant meditation, for Its subjects are things given and things received, good deeds done and good things experienced.

It also contains, this day after Christmas feeling, a quality of reconciliation, not of reconciliation with ancient enemies—this was all orthodoxly attended to on Christmas eve—but of reconciliation with affairs, of readjustment.