Interview with Karal Ann Marling, a Professor Emeritus, a well-known specialist in American culture, and the author of many books

Question: Can you tell us about a few milestones in the history of the Christmas tradition that shaped it into what we see today?

Marling: One of the big traditions is the Christmas tree, which was originally a kind of centerpiece and holder for presents, which hasn’t changed all that much. The Christmas tree is German in origin, but it really made its impact in the United States when Godey’s Lady’s Book and a woman named Sara Josepha Hale, a contemporary of Abraham Lincoln, who was the editor, published a picture of the Royal Family of Great Britain standing around a little Christmas tree, and of course Queen Victoria’s husband was German. Almost immediately magazines and newspapers of the day were filled with descriptions of Christmas trees, which previous to this time made some appearances in German religious congregations, but were usually not something you saw in the home, they were usually great public spectacles often times in churches. Well it was the German tradition, and certainly got to be a very popular one in America to hang Christmas presents for on trees, and that really got the whole centerpiece of the American Christmas started, which is nowadays, I suppose, an artificial tree or an aluminum tree like Elvis Presley had. In the 19th century it was customary to conceal the tree until the Christmas Eve or Christmas morning and then the mother of the house would go in and light real candles and then throw the doors open. It was almost a theatrical presentation.

Question: What about Santa Claus, when did an association between Christmas and Santa Claus first appear?

Marling: Well, Saint Nicholas was among other things the patron Saint of New Amsterdam, the Dutch settlement which became New York. He again came to prominence in the Civil War era. Up to that point he had been a fairly minor, but suddenly, with young men gone to war and husbands and fathers away, the editorial cartoonist Thomas Nast, the same man who invented the donkey for the democrats and the elephant for the republicans, began depicting Santa Claus as a kind of messenger between northern families and Union troops. So you would see pictures in Harper's Weekly, which was the most widely read pictorial source of the day, of old Saint Nick as a little elf at that point, on a sled with little boxes with what was called in those days “home comforts,” maybe scarves or other small items that he was delivering from wives and mothers back home to troops. The emphasis I think on Christmas and sending tokens of love to others really thrived during the Civil War when families were separated. That’s how Christmas, it seems to me, got to be such a major family event, and I think you can almost not separate the one from the other.

Question: Can you talk a little about the evolution of the image of Santa Claus over the last few hundred years into what it is today?

Marling: Well, I don’t know that Santa has changed very much except in how we want to see him. In the 1930s Haddon Sunblom, a commercial artist out of Chicago began drawing Santa Clauses for the Coca-Cola Company as part of the campaign to get people to drink soft drinks in the winter time. The caffeine content of soda was desirable during the Great Depression when people were kind of down and out. But Sunblom’s Santas were exactly opposite of the guy you would see on the street soliciting funds for charity in the period. Rather than being skinny and worn-out and standing in a bread line, the Coca-Cola Santa was huge, round and fat and well fed and genial, above all happy. And I think it really helped see the country through the depression. Now that we are in a big recession, people are talking about, “oh we should have another WPA” (Works Progress Administration) I think that maybe we should have more Santas.

Question: Can the image of Santa Claus be viewed as a purely western symbol, and is there a link between Santa and western values such as freedom and democracy?

Marling: Well, I am the wrong person to talk to about politics. I know that in Japan Santa is very big in part because the Japanese love giving presents to one another. And that’s part of their own cultural tradition that has nothing to do with American Christmas, but American Christmas and holidays like Valentines Day which are also big gift giving occasions suit their culture, and so that’s something they adopt. I have been in Japan several times during the Christmas season and it’s interesting to walk down the Ginza and see groups of little Japanese people dressed up like the characters in the Charles Dickens Scrooge story and jolly Santas cavorting around, but it’s great fun.

Question: What nationality is Santa Claus?

Marling: It’s hard to tell what nationality Santa is, and that’s kind of one of the things I like about him. Originally he was a Middle Eastern figure actually. In the tenant of the Church he was a bishop form Asia Minor who was said to have rescued three young women whose father couldn’t afford a dowry for them. The bishop anonymously tossed balls of gold through the window of their house at night so they were able to marry and lead respectable lives, and not wither away as old maids. He ultimately migrated to Europe, and just about every country in Europe has a Santa or a Santa-like figure. I think one of the twists in Europe is that he retains his ecclesiastical role. In Germany and in Germanic countries he used to ask kids to recite a Bible verse, he would ask them if they have been naughty or nice, and if they have been naughty they were liable to get a stick of coal in their stocking instead of a present. I think that aspect of Santa as sort of a “have you been a bad little boy?” figure has kind of tuned-out at least in my lifetime. I don’t think Santas ask that anymore, they just give something to everybody.

Question: So what effect does receiving presents without any strings attached have on the psychology of children as they grow up?

Marling: Well, I think when children grow up they learn something about generosity, and generosity of spirit when they are young. They don’t have to believe in Santa Claus anymore, but they become Santa Claus and they give presents to their own children, people they love and poor people at Christmas time. They continue the tradition of charity that, of course, Dickens also wrote about, even so he didn’t write about Santa Clauses in the Christmas Carol. 

Question: As an expert on this subject, has it changed they way you view Christmas and Santa Claus?

Marling: Well, I think I got interested in Christmas in the first place because my father was one of the greatest Christmas fans of all time. He would start singing Christmas carols around Thanksgiving. My parents and my grandparents always celebrated Christmas in a big way, and it was not only a religious festival that we went to church for. They were very careful about choosing gifts, they were delighted when children went out of their way to give them little things that they made and that really stuck with me. I always sort of felt sorry for people who for one reason or another, because they didn’t have a family or because things were tough, didn’t make the effort to consider generosity of the spirit, which I always thought was my father’s greatest gift. So when the opportunity came to look at Christmas customs a little more carefully, I started getting really into it and it has become kind of central to your life the whole idea of Christmas all year long. If you can help somebody out, if you can do something for somebody, if you can make their eyes light up, children or adult, you just got to go ahead and do it.

Question: Do you expect something special from Santa Claus this year?

Marling: Well, I was sort of hoping that everybody likes the Christmas dinner I am making because it’s the first time I am making dinner. So it would be a great present to me if nobody got sick… (laughter). And of course to have my family with me, that’s a great present, always.