𝑺𝒂𝒏𝒕𝒂, 𝑹𝒆𝒄𝒓𝒖𝒊𝒕𝒆𝒅: 𝑾𝒉𝒂𝒕'𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒍𝒊𝒏𝒌 𝒃𝒆𝒕𝒘𝒆𝒆𝒏 𝑫𝒊𝒐𝒏𝒚𝒔𝒖𝒔, 𝒑𝒓𝒐𝒑𝒂𝒈𝒂𝒏𝒅𝒂 & 𝑪𝒊𝒗𝒊𝒍 𝑾𝒂𝒓 — 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒉𝒐𝒘 𝒅𝒐𝒆𝒔 𝑺𝒂𝒏𝒕𝒂 𝒇𝒊𝒕 𝒊𝒏 𝒂𝒍𝒍 𝒐𝒇 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒔?

Before Santa became a universal holiday icon, he had a career in politics. Even more than that, what if I told you that the jolly North Pole resident, always trailed by reindeer and elf groupies, is merely a product of propaganda?
Sounds too extreme? Let me take it further: 𝗔𝗺𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗻 propaganda. Scared? Boo.

Well, let’s rewind a bit. This is the story of how Santa became a tool of ideology: a salesman for American identity, as well as a cuddly emblem of national unity.

Until the mid-1800s, Christmas hadn’t yet solidified (especially in the U.S. and Britain) into the intimate, home-filled, family-centered tradition we now picture: awash in love, care for one another, magic & miracle. The familiar “sparkle script” wasn’t the norm. No glow of lights, no bright-red ribbons on presents, no Christmas tree in every living room with gifts tucked underneath. Consequently, there also was no Santa as we know him today.

Earlier “holiday spirit” could look less like a cozy domestic postcard and more like public revelry & drunken frenzies, licentious feasts and general wintertime debauchery. Call it a vestige of the pagan past and solstice celebrations. This helps explain one of Santa’s early cousins, 𝗦𝗶𝗿 𝗖𝗵𝗿𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗺𝗮𝘀/ 𝗙𝗮𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝗖𝗵𝗿𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗺𝗮𝘀, sometimes carrying visual parallels to 𝑫𝒊𝒐𝒏𝒚𝒔𝒖𝒔, 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗴𝗼𝗱 𝗼𝗳 𝗲𝗰𝘀𝘁𝗮𝘀𝘆 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗳𝗲𝗿𝘁𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆, the flower-crowned type rather than the chimney-crawling moral accountant.

In fact, early Christmas could be so far from God that Puritans abolished it in the 1600s as unholy indulgence and profligacy. Only by the mid-1800s did American & British culture begin to clothe the holiday in merciful, conventionally moral undertones, with domestic warmth and charity pushed to the forefront. 𝗗𝗶𝗰𝗸𝗲𝗻𝘀’s 𝘈 𝘊𝘩𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘮𝘢𝘴 𝘊𝘢𝘳𝘰𝘭 (1843) amplified the shift.

As Christianity spread and shaped European life, the holiday came to carry primarily sectarian meaning, and the earliest prototypes of the modern-day Santa were modeled on 𝗦𝗮𝗶𝗻𝘁 𝗡𝗶𝗰𝗵𝗼𝗹𝗮𝘀, a fourth-century Christian bishop revered as a protector of children. Church-tied, his visual form was far from today’s plush red monarch: more ecclesiastical than magical, more skinny old man in cassock than belly-laughing chimney-climber. He was also famous for generosity: this is where the gift-giving lineage comes from.

On the other side of the globe, in mid-19th-century America, Christmas was popular but still unstandardized: a patchwork of regional and immigrant customs.

You’re probably thinking by now: cool, congratulations. Where is the 𝑨𝒎𝒆𝒓𝒊𝒄𝒂𝒏 𝒑𝒓𝒐𝒑𝒂𝒈𝒂𝒏𝒅𝒂 (meant to be read in an elevated, grotesque tone) story advertised at the beginning?
*𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘢 𝘧𝘶𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘳 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦, 𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘵 𝘦𝘢𝘨𝘭𝘦 𝘴𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘴 𝘢𝘶𝘥𝘪𝘰*

Okay-okay, here comes the juicy part.
𝟭𝟴𝟲𝟯. The Civil War is raging in its full bloody swing. It ripped the country open, and suddenly the idea of a shared national feeling became urgent.

Insert a German-American caricaturist working for a widely read magazine of the day, 𝘏𝘢𝘳𝘱𝘦𝘳’𝘴 𝘞𝘦𝘦𝘬𝘭𝘺. An ardent champion of abolition and civil rights, 𝑻𝒉𝒐𝒎𝒂𝒔 𝑵𝒂𝒔𝒕 is eager to make his graphics a tool of political influence — and a weapon in support of the Union cause.

And what better way to boost a soldier’s morale than to bring the why —what they’re fighting for— right to the forefront? Family. Stability. Someone waiting for you at home. Nast layers his wartime politics onto that newly domesticated Christmas mood… and hits the jackpot.

In one of his early depictions of what would become the main symbol of Christmas, Santa Claus wears a jacket adorned with stars & striped pants and distributes gifts to soldiers stationed at a Union army camp — while the American flag waves proudly above him.

Instead of an old-world saint or a vague winter spirit, Santa becomes a distinctly American presence: one who visits soldiers, blesses the home front and stitches “family,” “morale” & “nation” into one emotional package. Another jackpot for Nast and the Union: they can now claim the holiday, along with all the “good” attached to it. The implication is powerful and persuasive: warmth, goodness, abundance, and childhood joy — these belong to 𝒖𝒔. And so does Santa.

Nast didn’t wave the flag at Santa once & move on. He standardized the message across 33 𝘏𝘢𝘳𝘱𝘦𝘳’𝘴 𝘞𝘦𝘦𝘬𝘭𝘺 Santas (1863–1886): Santa has a side, and it’s recruitable. In that first 1863 image, he shows up in Union kit, handing gifts to Union troops, and even brandishes a toy that turns Confederate president 𝗝𝗲𝗳𝗳𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗼𝗻 𝗗𝗮𝘃𝗶𝘀 into the villain-in-miniature.

Then Nast bureaucratizes the magic: he pins Santa to an “official” address (the North Pole) and sketches the workshop logic that makes him feel less like folklore and more like an institution you can recruit into. Once the machinery exists, it’s endlessly reusable. Coca-Cola locks in the warm, realistic Santa in 1931; by WWII, the state drafts him for war-bond drives. Same beard, new orders.

Santa’s story works because it runs on 𝗺𝘆𝘁𝗵 𝗿𝗲𝗰𝘆𝗰𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴: take an emotionally powerful archetype, clean it up for the era, and repurpose it to carry messages about virtue, belonging & “who we are.” The names and costumes change, but the mechanism stays the same.

That same mechanism —how a culture manufactures meaning by stitching old gods into new costumes— is one of the questions driving 𝑹𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒅 𝑬𝒂𝒓𝒕𝒉, 𝑶𝒑𝒆𝒏 𝑺𝒌𝒚 by 𝐊𝐢𝐫𝐩𝐚𝐥 𝐆𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐨𝐧. 𝑹𝑬𝑶𝑺 doesn’t treat myth as trivia; it treats it as circuitry: the way identities (personal and collective) get built, sold, defended, and made to feel like “home.” Publishing this right after 𝘖𝘳𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘥𝘰𝘹 𝘊𝘩𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘮𝘢𝘴 (𝘑𝘢𝘯 𝟩) feels fitting: a second Christmas on the calendar, a second reminder that traditions don’t merely “continue” — they’re continually authored.

Available on Amazon

Round Earth, Open Sky

Kirpal Gordon

A mytho-poetic road novel through desert and dream—Sky Man, Moses, and a journey that keeps opening into stranger terrain.