Posted Dec. 28 2014 at Cold Southern Steel-----https://coldsouthernsteel.wordpress.com/2014/12/28/thomas-nast-and-santa-clause-the-truth/

At Thanksgiving, Jimmy Dick tried to get the best of me with a Thanksgiving proclamation by Lincoln. Lincolns proclamation was proven by documents of the period to come after Jefferson Davis proclamation.

Being a bit slow getting to my email, I just found Al Mackey's not exactly factual post on Santa Clause and Thomas Nast at  http://studycivilwar.wordpress.com/2014/12/25/thomas-nast-and-santa-claus/.

In this post Mackey makes the statement that --- "The first use of the modern image of Santa Claus was by Thomas Nast in the winter of 1862-1863. The first image of Santa Claus showed him distributing gifts to Union soldiers. The modern Santa is a Union man, because his creator, Nast, was a diehard Union supporter."

(See images of Harper's Weekly articles here-- http://www.sonofthesouth.net/Original_Santa_Claus.htm)

According to this website http://www.stnicholascenter.org/pages/origin-of-santa/ this image appeared in 1821, forty years before Nast's image appeared.

This website also goes on to say this---

1821 brought some new elements with publication of the first lithographed book in America, the Children's Friend. This "Sante Claus" arrived from the North in a sleigh with a flying reindeer. The anonymous poem and illustrations proved pivotal in shifting imagery away from a saintly bishop. Sante Claus fit a didactic mode, rewarding good behavior and punishing bad, leaving a "long, black birchen rod . . . directs a Parent's hand to use when virtue's path his sons refuse." Gifts were safe toys, "pretty doll . . . peg-top, or a ball; no crackers, cannons, squibs, or rockets to blow their eyes up, or their pockets. No drums to stun their Mother's ear, nor swords to make their sisters fear; but pretty books to store their mind with knowledge of each various kind." The sleigh itself even sported a bookshelf for the "pretty books." The book also notably marked S. Claus' first appearance on Christmas Eve, rather than December 6th.

The jolly elf image received another big boost in 1823, from a poem destined to become immensely popular, "A Visit from St. Nicholas," now better known as "The Night Before Christmas."

Keeping in mind that Mackey bills himself as a historian and posts mainly about the War For Southern Independence, you would think Mackey would have done a bit more research that to take his posted source website as gospel.

It is really low when someone has to use Christmas or any religious holiday to spread their bigotry and hate. Maybe the search for historical fact is a bit slow these days????

Now you know the truth.