Author: teapottipper

Query

This query grew out of a very fun interview I did with a Children’s News program called First Stop News. I had a lovely time talking with the team at First Stop News and am delighted to be part of their holiday program. Here is the link to the interview on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VI8mfuvi43A

However, A viewer commented on my discussion of the date of Christmas, and was unhappy with my comments that the date of Christmas on December 25 is not found in the Bible and may be linked with pagan celebrations of winter solstice. In the interview, I also commented that some people theorize a spring date for the birth of Jesus based on the descriptions shepherds tending their flocks in the Bible. The viewer disputed both these claims: first the viewer addressed the date of Christmas with a theory that a measures of the birth of Christ based on other clues in the Bible, based on the idea that date of John the Baptist’s conception during the feast of Tabernacles. The viewer also addressed the second issue regarding shepherds by pointing out the mild climate of the Middle East, making it feasible for shepherds to be out at this time of year.

The producers of the program asked me to respond, so I wrote them a little essay. I combined my response to them with some other notes I had saved elsewhere, and share the result with you here. As I post this on the last (12th) day of Christmas in 2025, it seemed appropriate to address some quandaries about the date of the first day of Christmas.

Answer

Firstly, I think it is important emphasize that I am a scholar of folklore, and my scholarly interest is in the evolution of the traditions of the festival of Christmas, rather than the theology of Christmas. I rely on my theologian colleagues to debate and present the history of theological arguments for the date of Christmas. There is ample evidence that the festival of Christmas borrows heavily from many non-Christian traditions and sources. Apart from the Christian theological arguments for choosing December 25 as the date of the birth of Christ, the Christmas holiday has most certainly evolved and persisted through many cultural transformations for many reasons in addition to Christianity’s own theological arguments and messages. I am interested in the impact of Christmas as a socially capacious, adaptive, and multicultural festival that draws from many sources. I am not interested in proving or disproving Christian theology. But I am interested in the history of the diverse human cultural interpretations of this holiday.

I’m going to present some thoughts from two other scholars of Christmas. First is Clement Miles, via his book Christmas Customs and Traditions, first published in 1912, republished in 1976. This is one of my favorite sources for Christmas folklore and history, but it does reflect assumptions of a particular era of scholarship that was interested in classical and pre-Christian antecedents of Christian holidays. Secondly, I refer to an eminent contemporary scholar of religion, Andrew McGowan of Yale Divinity School (https://divinity.yale.edu/faculty-and-research/yds-faculty/andrew-mcgowan) who recently published a nice article on the topic of the date of Christmas. McGowan goes into much greater detail about the development of the date of Christmas through the history of Christian theological debate, and I strongly encourage you to read his entire article. I will draw some basic ideas and information from Miles and McGowan to illustrate how this debate has been dealt with by scholars over time. https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-topics/new-testament/how-december-25-became-christmas/#note03

Both  Miles and McGowan, scholars writing more than 100 years apart, provide much more sophisticated and nuanced histories of the details of the emergence of a date for Christmas in the Christian church than I was able to describe in our interview on First Stop News, but both also acknowledge that the dating of Christmas on December 25 is not attested directly in the Gospels and has been the subject of theological debate since the beginning of the church.

Early Christians argued about determining this date. In the meantime, early Christians first approached the development of a festival around the emergent Christmas holiday with caution about potential overlap with a pagan holiday. As time moved on and Christianity extended across Europe, Christians adopted, used, or simply tolerated the customs and symbols of adjacent pagan holidays to their advantage in promoting their own religious message. It is also worth mentioning that not all Christians today celebrate Christmas on December 25th. Eastern Orthodox churches celebrate Christmas on January 6th, based on the Julian calendar.

According to the historian and folklorist Clement Miles, Christmas takes many of its customs and probably its date on the calendar from the pagan Roman festivals of Saturnalia and Kalends. Saturnalia occurred on December 17^th and continued for the week following. We can see in these Roman festivals the seeds of many of the cultural and social aspects of the Christmas holiday. Miles says, “The most remarkable and typical feature however, of the Saturnalia was the mingling of all classes in a common jollity”, which could include feasting and gift giving.”

The Roman festive season continued into the celebration of Kalends, the New Year, when further feasting, spending, gift-giving, parading, and freedom from work prevailed. These customs were so popular and ingrained in Roman life, that early fathers of the Christian church took pains to condemn the practice of these holidays. In a sermon attributed to St. Augustine of Hippo but likely composed in the sixth century, the saint says, “Now as for them who on those days observe any heathen customs, it is to be feared that the name of Christian will avail them nought [….] For he who on the Kalends shows any civility to foolish men who are wantonly sporting, is undoubtedtly a partaker in their sin.” Participating in Kalends celebrations was formally forbidden for Christians by a church council in Constantinople in 692. 

But amidst this rejection of the indulgent aspects of the Roman pagan feasts, Christian observance of the birth of Christ had begun to take root around the same time in the calendar. Clement Miles says, “The first mention of a Nativity feast on December 25^th is found in a Roman document known as the Philocalian Calendar, dating from the year 354 […] In 567 the Council of Tours had declared the Twelve Days, from Christmas to Epiphany, a festal tide.” The choice of this date for the celebration of the birth of Christ does not stem from any relationship to the Gospels, as there is no mention of a specific date for Christmas. *This image is of a 17th century manuscript source of the Philcolian Calendar from the Vatican Library(cod. Barberini lat. 2154) which was thought to be copied from a Carolingian copy, Codex Luxemburgensis, a copy of the orginial Roman document.

It is possible that December 25^th was chosen to provide an alternative to another pagan celebration on that date the Dies Natalis Solis Invicti, or the birth of the Invincible Sun, a holiday first celebrated by order of Emerpor Aurelian during his reign from 270-275. Christians may have decided to co-opt this pagan celebration of a sun god, occurring near the winter solstice, to highlight their celebration of the birth of their own “light of the world”, Jesus Christ.

In the eyes of Clement Miles and scholars of his era, these Roman Pagan festivals, Saturnalia and Kalends, and Dies Natalis Solis Invicti, provided an antagonism to the morals of Christianity, but also an opportunity for early Christians. By choosing to celebrate their religious holiday in the same part of the year, Miles believed they probably could could appropriate the momentum of festivity, the symbols of light, and the generosity and excitement of popular pagan celebration and offer an alternative religious observance that highlighted the appearance of their new holy figure into a very old Roman world. Miles says:

“What more natural that that the Church should choose this day to celebrate the rising of her Sun of Righteousness with healing in His wings, that she should strive thus to draw away to His workshop some adorers of the god whose symbol and representative was the earthly sun! There is no direct evidence of deliberate substitution, but at all events ecclesiastical writers soon after the foundation of Christmas made good use of the idea that the birthday of the Saviour had replaced the birthday of the sun.” (Clement Miles, Christmas Customs and Traditions. Dover Publications Inc, New York: 1976 pg 23-24).

Miles then refers in a footnote to theories of dating the birth through other scriptural information, referencing another scholar (L Duchesne, “Christian Worship: Its Origin and Evolution” Eng. Trans. Revised Edition. London: 1912). Miles is also nuanced in weaving the cause and effect of these dates together, clearly suggesting influence of Roman paganism on the Christmas festival and the pros and cons early Christians saw in aligning their holiday to this pagan event.

The recent article by McGowan published in Biblical Archaeology provides a very detailed overview of many additional early Christian conversations and debates contributing to the determination of the Christmas holiday and its date. He addresses several theological theories of Jesus’s birth date as calculated in relation to other events in the Bible. Here he discusses one approach that early Christians took in establishing a date for Christmas: “Around 200 C.E. Tertullian of Carthage reported the calculation that the 14th of Nisan (the day of the crucifixion according to the Gospel of John) in the year Jesus diedc was equivalent to March 25 in the Roman (solar) calendar.9 March 25 is, of course, nine months before December 25; it was later recognized as the Feast of the Annunciation—the commemoration of Jesus’ conception.10 Thus, Jesus was believed to have been conceived and crucified on the same day of the year. Exactly nine months later, Jesus was born, on December 25.”

But McGowan also addresses the theory of overlap and influence with other pagan solar festivals like Saturnalia, as Miles did over a century ago. McGowan is more critical of the attributions of influence by Roman pagan sources, and he favors sourcing the date from some of these internal Christian theological theories. But he does not rule out the influence of pagan festivals on the development of the holiday, as he says here:

“In the end we are left with a question: How did December 25 become Christmas? We cannot be entirely sure. Elements of the festival that developed from the fourth century until modern times may well derive from pagan traditions. Yet the actual date might really derive more from Judaism—from Jesus’ death at Passover, and from the rabbinic notion that great things might be expected, again and again, at the same time of the year—than from paganism. Then again, in this notion of cycles and the return of God’s redemption, we may perhaps also be touching upon something that the pagan Romans who celebrated Sol Invictus, and many other peoples since, would have understood and claimed for their own, too.”

Clearly, these debates have been going on for a long time!

Lastly, As for the shepherds watching their flocks by night – this is a theory often mentioned by people who favored a spring date, but the differences in climate do make the reference to shepherds as a marker of time of year unreliable. Even McGowan mentions this in his article: “The biblical reference to shepherds tending their flocks at night when they hear the news of Jesus’ birth (Luke 2:8) might suggest the spring lambing season; in the cold month of December, on the other hand, sheep might well have been corralled. Yet most scholars would urge caution about extracting such a precise but incidental detail from a narrative whose focus is theological rather than calendrical.” 

I wanted to mention the shepherd-spring date-theory as something people discussed in debates of the date. While the activities of the shepherds can’t tell us as much as we’d like, it certainly is interesting to think about the agricultural cycles that both the characters near Bethlehem may have been engaging in during the first century AD, as well as the agricultural cycles that Christians interpreted from the story based on their own lived experiences in far flung places around the world. 

It’s that time of year, where I respond to media and friend requests for information on Christmas customs.

Query:

Would it be possible to provide even a few lines of commentary on these mushrooms, specifically (separately from anything Santa-related)? As in, how/why did decorating for Christmas with these red and white mushrooms become a tradition in the U.S.? 

Answer:

With just an evening to devote to this query, I decided to do some quick and dirty research and a little bit of theorizing. In short, I think it would be an interesting question to look into the history of design and illustration to find when and where mushrooms become part of the visual lexicon of Christmas in America. If anyone out there has further thoughts or sources, please send. Below are are three threads of thought on Mushrooms and Christmas I wanted to mention. The image above left is “Happy New Year” postcard from the Boston Museum of Fine Art Leonard A. Lauder Postcard Archive—Gift of Leonard A. Lauder. It is by Mela Koehler, Vienna, Austria, about 1910. See below for the German mushroom good luck custom!(https://collections.mfa.org/download/555796;jsessionid=1CDA61E3A483B2C6D9A8462A6D7CD46C)

1) The Psychedelic Mushroom Santa Story. These days, if one googles “Christmas Mushrooms” one is likely to get a raft of media articles about fly agric, shamans, Sami, and Santa. While fanciful and sometimes intriguing, these associations are are more speculative than strictly historical. One of these articles inspired my blog post on the history of Santa last year. A fantastic response to the psychedelic mushroom Santa story is available in an article in National Geographic that interviewed my folklorist colleague Tim Frandy on this topic. He addresses the potential use of the mushroom amanita mascara, also known as fly agric, by Sámi shamans, and whether this played a role in shaping the myth of Santa. Frandy says:

“While it’s possible, even likely, that Sámi people formerly used amanita, it’s unlikely that this had any meaningful impact on Christmas lore in Europe,” says Frandy. The only time Frandy has seen Sámi shaman in particular connected to amanita was when a Finnish ethnographer claimed in the 1940s that Inari Sámi noaiddit used to consume amanita with seven spots. “Growing up Finnish, Swedish, and Sámi, I’ve never heard of any mushroom associations with Christmas … until Ikea started selling mushroom decorations for Christmas trees,” Frandy muses. “In Sápmi, those mushrooms emerge in September, and by December are long gone under snow.” (https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/santa-claus-magic-mushroom-legend)

2. Fairy Tales and Mushrooms. A better approach to understanding Christmas mushrooms might lie in looking at the ongoing relationship of fairies and elves to mushrooms in lore, literature, and illustration. We see mentions of toadstools, Puck, and fairies all the way back in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Fairy Tales in the 19th century were often illustrated with mushrooms, toadstools, and whimsical but detailed botanical drawings. It would be a worthwhile venture to investigate the depiction of mushrooms in art and illustration during this period, and draw links between the general approach to illustrating fairy tales and the specific application of that style to the magical interpretations of Christmas as a genre of fairy stories. The article below has a very interesting take on this relationship, drawing a connection to the development of scientific and fantastical imagery in illustration:

Yet, like the microscope, the fairy offered Victorians a means of imaginatively reconceptualizing the natural world as a place of minute wonders; the microscope revealed real, living particles in the crevices of nature, while fairy texts imagined mushrooms and flower buds populated with miniature fairies. (Forsberg, Laura. “Nature’s Invisibilia: The Victorian Microscope and the Miniature Fairy.” Victorian Studies 57, no. 4 (2015): 638–66. https://doi.org/10.2979/victorianstudies.57.4.03.)

3) German and Austrian Good Luck Charms, Sylvester / New Years, and Chimney Sweeps. Several internet posts I found referenced the fact that the mushroom is a symbol of good luck in German speaking cultures of Central Europe. Several noted a particular relationship between the depiction of Fly Agric and chimney sweeps on cards traded during the New Year, also celebrated as Sylvester. The quotations below note this historical development of a mushrooms as a good luck custom and their subsequent incorporation into a visual motif on holiday cards in Germany. The transition of this folk belief of mushrooms as good luck into a custom of depicting mushrooms on holiday cards would be a fascinating topic to explore further. As Christmas / New Years cards grew in popularity, became commercialized, and crossed cultural boundaries, did this good luck mushroom imagery migrate from Germany and come into use in America? And did it become part of a growing design motif integrated into contemporary Christmas images? I’d love to know more! Two of the quotes below are from websites which give no scholarly or historical attribution, and I have not had time to follow up on scholarly sources for this custom, but I think it is an interesting direction to follow up with more research. Does anyone out there have good historical sources to share on this topic?

“Whatever the case may be, the stunning and seductive be Amanita muscaria has inspired various people in different ways. It is a favorite among illustrators, and its image is repeatedly found in fairy-
tale books as an archetype for all mushrooms. In Germany and Austria it came to be considered a good luck omen and from there was adopted as the mascot of chimneysweeps throughout Europe.” (Whelan, Christal. “‘Amanita Muscaria’: The Gorgeous Mushroom.” Asian Folklore Studies 53, no. 1 (1994): 163–67. https://doi.org/10.2307/1178564.)

“The appearance of the Chimney Sweep (in German, Schornsteinfeger) on the New Year is thought bring good fortune, and this ordinarily lowly figure is met with reverence and good cheer. Folk images of the Chimney Sweep often depict him spilling forth woth tokens of good luck, including the familiar four-leafed clover and the more regional “red fly” mushroom. The Chimney Sweep bearing gifts begs comparison to another seasonal fireplace visitor, Santa Claus (from the Dutch Sinterklaas, or “Klaus of the cinders”), thought by some mythologists to be in part derived from the Norse God Thor, whose traditional altar is the home hearth. The distinctive red-and-white coloring of the “red fly” mushroom (amanita muscaria) carried by the Chimney Sweep, seems to further reinforce these connections.” (https://www.superiorconcept.org/Firstnight/germany.htm)

“The imagery on this card is unusual to American eyes because the slipshod young chimney sweep is not only sprinkling the ground with four-leaf clovers, he is equally generous in his distribution of toxic red and white Amanita muscaria mushrooms. This is not as strange as it seems, however, for while the four-leaf clover is considered lucky throughout Europe and North America, the Amanita muscaria or “gluckpilz” (“lucky mushroom” in German) is deemed fortuitous in Central and Eastern Europe, where there are remnants of respect for its ancient use as a shamanic hallucinogen.” (https://www.luckymojo.com/chimneysweep.html)

Every year, I get questions about Christmas Folklore from journalists, friends, and students. I’ve started compiling my little mini-research replies and share them here occasionally. I also welcome responses, corrections, and debates!

Query:

“[I’d like to know] about the perceived connection between the indigenous practices of the Sámi people and the colors and traditions associated with Santa Claus. (Example: https://www.ffungi.org/blog/the-influence-of-hallucinogenic-mushrooms-on-christmas) I am looking to hear from an expert who could speak to this being a myth or potentially of merit. If you would be able to talk about the potential veracity of this connection or debunk it as a likely fabrication.”

Answer:

While there might be something there to investigate in terms of Sami mythology, the history of Santa Claus developing into the globalized stereotypical image we know today has a quite well established American history. Below I will write more on that. Experts on Sami folklore worth consulting include Tim Frandy at University of British Columbia. https://cenes.ubc.ca/profile/tim-frandy/  and Thomas DuBois at University of Wisconsin Madison: https://gns.wisc.edu/staff/dubois-thomas-a/ Carrie Hertz of the International Museum of Folk Art has also written a book on Nordic dress and adornment, https://iupress.org/9780253058577/dressing-with-purpose/.

The transformation of the Christian Saint Nicholas to a folkloric elf involves a complex interplay of many Christian and pagan customs surrounding midwinter, from the Roman Empire to the Nordic countries, and then to America and beyond. In many European traditions, St. Nicholas retains his bishop’s attire. Other Christmas figures, including Father Christmas, Pere Noel, Frau Perchta, La Befana, draw on a variety of folklore customs of complex local origin.

Aside from a potential relationship to Sami folklore, there are Scandinavian precedents of tomte (elves) and these seem to have a separate evolution than our modern Santa in America. Note this quote from a magazine article published by Scandinavian Press, which does suggest that a Swedish interpretation of the Sami image may have been introduced in a publication in 1871: “In Sweden, like in many of the Nordic countries, it was someone dressed up like a goat that originally distributed the Christmas gifts. All that changed when Viktor Rydberg published Little Vigg’s Adventure on Christmas Eve in 1871, when a boy is picked up by a “tomte” distributing gifts around the countryside in his sledge drawn by four miniature horses. When Rydberg wrote the poem The Tomte he commissioned a less ugly-looking santa as an illustration from an 18-year-old artist. Jenny Nyström used her father as a model and gave her “tomte” the body of an old Lapplander. She created the image of the modem Swedish santa and as she continued to draw him for 70 years, her “tomte” was firmly established in Swedish Christmas traditions. Her son Curt Nyström Stoopendahl and other artists continued to draw her naturalistic santas while Aina Stenberg Mas Olle’s Christmas cards are full of younger more decorative tomtenissar. These “small santas” may sometimes deliver something in the stocking, as a foretaste of the real santa, already on the morning of Christmas Eve.” (Nordic Santas, Scandinavian Press)

Further information on tomte can be found in Swedish Legends and Folktakes by John Lindow: “Accordingly the being best disposed toward men is the household spirit, known in Sweden as the tomte (plural tomtar) or, in parts of the south, as the nisse, a hypercoristic form of the name Nikolas. The term tomte is regarded as elided from compounds whose first component is the noun tomt (“plot of land”) and whose second component is some nature-being.” Lindow goes on to quote from an early folklore source who describes them: “Tomtar are small, wear red caps, and are usually quite shabby. They are very strong, so it is not good to cross them. They can be either a help or a nuisance. If you treat them well they can be of much use to you, but if you treat them badly they can do you much harm.” (Lindow 40)

The potential influence of this Swedish publication in particular and the tradition of tomte in general on the American evolution of Santa Claus is uncertain, as Rydberg’s publication comes after the emergence of a Santa Claus image already developing in America. In America, the primary early influences are allegedly Dutch, but even these are disputed. Washington Irving’s book A History Of New York, From the Beginning Of the World To the End Of the Dutch Dynasty . . . By Diedrich Knickerbocker [Pseud] published on St. Nicholas Day, 1809 contains this description of the saint according to his fictional Dutch American narrator, “And when St. Nicholas had smoked his pipe, he twisted it in his hat-band, and laying a finger aside of his nose, gave the astonished Van Kortlandt a very significant wink, then, mounting his wagon, he returned over the tree-tops and disappeared.”

In his book The Battle for Christmas, historian Stephen Nissenbaum outlines the emergence of our modern myth of Santa Claus in early 19^th century New York – in the 1820s through the influence of patrician New Yorkers, known as the “Knickerbocker set” – including Washington Irving, John Pintard, and Clement Clarke Moore. He argues that despite their appeal to a Dutch tradition, the Santa Claus they popularize was less directly influenced by the Dutch Sinter Klaas, and more an invention of their own version of Dutch tradition, a version which could elevate their social concerns and combat other rowdy Christmas customs of the time. “The Knickerbockers felt that they belonged to a patrician class whose authority was under siege. From that angle, their invention of Santa Claus was part of which we can now see as a larger, ultimately quite serious cultural enterprise: forging a pseudo-Dutch identity for New York, a placid “folk” identity that could provide a cultural counterweight to the commercial bustle and democratic “misrule” of early nineteenth century New York”. (Nissenbaum 65)

It is interesting to note that in the actual Dutch traditions of Sinter Klaas, he rides a white horse (not a reindeer). In Christmas A Candid History, Bruce Forbes writes: “According to legend, Sinter Klaas spent most of the year in Spain, keeping track of the behavior of Dutch children from afar […] Each year, two or three weeks before St. Nicholas’ Day, Sinter Klaas and Zwarte Piet would arrive by ship from Spain […] In the evenings Sinter Klaas rode a white horse over rooftops, leaving small gifts in wooden shoes children had placed on the step or by the fireplace.” (Forbes 77)

In her book, The Night Before Christmas: A Descriptive Bibliography of Clement Clarke Moore’s Immortal Poem With Editions from 1823-2000, librarian Nancy Marshall elaborates on the elements of the Santa image that Moore himself introduces in the 1823 poem, heavily influenced by Washington Irving’s “Dutch” depictions of St. Nicolas. “Moore is often credited with four original contributions to the iconography of our present conception of St. Nicholas – the sleigh, the eight reindeer, Santa’s fur clothing and pipe, and finally, his method of entrance and exit via the chimney instead of a door. Some of these fruit of his imagination, however, were almost certainly influenced by at least three publications that appeared in the years just prior to his writing the poem.” (Marshall xxi) Marshall goes on to reference the three potential influences, including Washington Irving, an unnamed poet published in a New York paper, and third New Yorker, William Gilley.

Finally, in Christmas a Candid History, author Bruce Forbes continues to outline the evolution of Santa Claus’s image, from the tiny elf wearing fur in Moore’s poem, to the large jolly Santa in red we are familiar with today. He describes the contributions of illustrator Thomas Nast who first drew Santa Claus in 1863, “The outfit that Nast gave Santa was a little different from our modern image, with a fur hat rather than a stocking cap, and clothes (“dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot”) that looked like very itchy long underwear. Nast returned to the subject of Santa year after year in Harper’s, and the content of the drawings added many other lasting features to the Santa mythology: A North Pole Headquarters; Santa as a toymaker; elves as Santa’s assistants; Santa receiving letters from children.” (Forbes 89-90) See more information on Nast’s images and political influences in this article: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/civil-war-cartoonist-created-modern-image-santa-claus-union-propaganda-180971074/

Forbes continues on the emerging images of Santa, ” Tall or short, thin or plump, Santa was dressed in fur or cloth, with colors varying from red and blue to earth tones. Red became the most common color for his clothing, and department store Santas appeared with standard red and white costumes, although uniformity was not absolute.” (Forbes 90-91)

In short, while a link to Sami folklore and mythology may be in there somewhere, perhaps through a late convergence of the American Santa Clause and the Scandinavian tomte tradition, the complex evolution of St. Nicholas into the globalized Santa Claus is full of so many diverse influences, that I do not think a Sami origin alone should be overstated, especially in specific the context of the American Santa Claus.

Sources

Forbes, Bruce David. 2007. Christmas : A Candid History. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press,. https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520933729

Irving, Washington. 1809. A History Of New York, From the Beginning Of the World To the End Of the Dutch Dynasty . . . By Diedrich Knickerbocker [Pseud]. New York: Inskeep & Bradford.

Lindow, John. 1978. Swedish Legends and Folktales. Reprint 2019. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520317772.

Marshall, Nancy H. 2002. The Night before Christmas : A Descriptive Bibliography of Clement Clarke Moore’s Immortal Poem. New Castle, Del: Oak Knoll Press.

Nissenbaum, Stephen. 1996. The Battle for Christmas. 1st ed. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

From the Original Tomte to the Swedish Coca-Cola Santa. 2006. Swedish Press (Vancouver. 1986). Vol. 77. Vancouver: Swedish Press.

Nordic Santas. 1998. Scandinavian Press. Vol. 5. Vancouver: Scandinavian Press.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/civil-war-cartoonist-created-modern-image-santa-claus-union-propaganda-180971074