Christmas Every Day

Even terrorists send Christmas greetings: an IRA card from 1973.

An aggressive Santa sells saving stamps for  war bonds in this Canadian card from World War II.

In this 1914 French card General Joseph Joffre, supreme commander, delivers gifts to a sleeping child.

Here is a very curious American card from 1943 produced by someone who obviously loved dogs. The borzoi of Russia, the Pekinese of China, the British bulldog and the American boxer pull the sled of unity toward world peace.

The French are not all that big on Christmas cards but during the Second World War, German military authorities provided French prisoners of war cards to send home. This one hints at an eventual happy family reunion.

February 2; since the sixth century the day of the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary and now known as the Feast of the Presentation, marking the ritual in the Temple required by Jewish law law forty days after the birth of a male child.

When the infant Jesus was brought to the Temple, Simeon spoke of him as “a light to lighten the Gentiles” (Luke 2:32) and so light is the theme of the day. Believers bring a candle to the church to be blessed; these candles are thought to possess magical powers against sickness and thunder storms. Across many cultures it is the last day of the Christmas season when all ornaments must be taken down and greenery burnt. In England the Yule log for the next Christmas was selected and set to dry; in Mexico it is the Dia de Candelaria when the image of the baby Jesus is removed from the cradle. On Candlemas, Scottish school children used to bring money to their teacher to buy candles to light the school room, a practice that turned into simply bringing gifts to the master. The boy who brought the most money (the term for this gratuity was bleeze-money) was named Candlemas King whose reign lasted six weeks and who was allowed to remit punishments.

The custom of predicting the weather based on conditions on Candlemas has turned into Groundhog Day wherein North Americans watch the emergence of particular groundhogs from their hibernation — if they see their shadows on February 2, six more weeks of winter will follow. (Americans scrutinize the reaction of the Pennsylvania groundhog named Punxsutawney Phil while Canadians observe Ontario’s Wiarton Willie.) Candlemas was also believed to be a time when the soul of Judas was temporarily allowed out of Hell to ease his torment in the sea.

You don’t see many angels in Nazi-era Christmas cards but here is a whimsical little one from 1940.

I’m going to start posting some interesting Christmas cards from various war zones. Let’s begin with this jolly one from World War I Germany.

Now just a synonym of Santa Claus, “Kris Kringle” shows an interesting history of linguistic change over time. The name originates from Christkindl, the German term for the Christ Child who was thought to bring gifts. From the seventeenth to the nineteenth century, from its European origins to North America where it was brought by immigrants, the name mutated to Krischkindel to Kriss Kindle, to Kriss Kinkle and, by 1842 in Philadelphia, to Kriss Kringle. In an 1855 article in Putnam’s Monthly. The narrator, Mr. Sparrowgrass implores his wife to mind her language:

“My dear,” said I after a pause, “speaking of children I wish you would not teach the young ones so many of your Philadelphia phrases….Mrs. Sparrowgrass, next Christmas Santa Claus, if you please – no, Kriss Kringle. Santa Claus is the patron saint, Mrs. Sparrowgrass, of the New Netherlands, and the ancient Dorp of Yonkers; he it is who fills the fireside stockings; he only can come down Westchester chimneys, and I would much prefer not to have the children’s minds and the flue occupied with his Pennsylvania prototype.”

We see in American children’s books such as  Kriss Kringle’s Christmas Tree and department store advertisements that the name was being applied to a Santa Claus figure far from the original notion of the Christ Child. In the twentieth century the name was spelled both “Kris” and “Kriss” Kringle. The original Miracle on 34th Street (above), for example, uses the former and the 1994 remake uses the latter.

Female belsnicklers in German settlements in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia who disguised themselves as Wise Men were known as Kris Kringles.