Greatest Hits--MM#190--T'was the Night Before Christmas

Hello again. Unfortunately, david is still sick, so we are going back into the archives to pull the greatest hits from our Christmas-themed shows over the years. We hope you will enjoy this one. Welcome to the Theory to Action podcast, where we examine the timeless treasures of wisdom from the great books in less time to help you take action immediately and ultimately to create and lead a flourishing life. Now here's your host, david Kaiser.

Hello, I am David and welcome back to another Mojo Minute. So again it is Christmas week and, in our continuing tradition, we reserve this week's Mojo Minutes for the Christmas theme. And in our last Mojo Minute we touched on the true St Nicholas from Icya and for this episode we will focus on what most American-born Christian children will know from their heart of hearts, if say they were born after the Civil War. That infamous reading of the 1823 poem Twas the Night Before Christmas. And as a word of caution to you adults, I would recommend you listen to this episode without your children. There's always sensitive information that is often passed between Santa Claus and the adults on these highly confidential matters, and I would certainly put this episode into that category. So with that, parents, you can pause the podcast from here. And, mr Producer, can we get some Christmas music while we wait on the parents to pause the podcast there?

we go.

Excellent work, mr Producer. And actually, while we wait for the parents to get the kids all situated, let me remind you of another American Christmas tradition the annual watching of the television special A Charlie Brown Christmas. I hope some of you remember the opening words of that infamous Christmas special as if they were written by the English Bard himself. Its famous opening lines go like this quote Dear Santa, I have been extra good this year, so I have a long list of presents I want. Young Sally writes to Santa Claus. Please note the size and color of each item and send as many as possible. If it seems too complicated, make it easy on yourself, just send money. How about tens and twenties? End of quote. Oh Lord, in the words of the great Charlie Brown, oh brother, how wrong does Sally get the message in meaning of Christmas. Come on, charlie Brown, straighten out Sally's thinking, for heaven's sake. Okay, so we've allowed enough time for the adults to get the kids situated and they're back with us. So with that let's roll. And, as always, let's kick it off with a quote to get us started with some backstory. And to do that we will go back to our book of the week, the True Saint Nicholas by William Bennett Quote it was the night before Christmas, as climate. Moore's poem came to be known depicted St Nicholas rather on a visit, not on the eve of December 6, st Nicholas Day, but on December 24. Thus Christmas time became St Nick time in the United States. The poem had one other remarkable effect. For centuries Christmas had included a rowdy side one, with much drinking, noise making and gangs of boisterous youth wandering the streets demanding hospitality from neighbors. The party season dated to pre-Christian times, when ancient cultures celebrated the winter solstice with merry making. The festivities got out of hand, which was one reason that Puritans and other reformers took a dim view of Christmas celebration. Moore's poem, with its images of the quiet hearth and children nestled all snug on their beds, helped make Christmas a home-centered, family-oriented time. Christmas became a holiday for children. By the time of Moore's poem, st Nicholas was assuming a new name in the United States. Americans found foreign terms for St Nicholas, particularly the Dutch, the Dutch Sinterklaas and the German Sant Nickklaas, difficult to pronounce. As they often did with old European words, they simply Americanized the name to Santy clause. From the 1820s until the Civil War, artists depicted Santa Claus in all sorts of outfits. Sometimes he wore a Dutch three-cornered hat, sometimes knickerbockers, sometimes a cape. As an example, in an 1863 illustration for Harper's Weekly, thomas Nass, the German-born political cartoonist, showed Santa Claus dressed in stars and stripes. He was distributing gifts to Union troops. In the next three decades he produced numerous woodcut images of Santa coming down chimneys, filling stockings and watching over sleeping children. With time, thomas Nass's Santa Claus became a rotund, jolly old elf, dressed in a red fur-trim jacket, with a broad belt, boots and a cap. A Santa that fit the spirit of Clement Moore's poem. Let's go back to the book. The Industrial Revolution brought factory-made toys and Santa's magic bag overflowed with gifts. Parents across the country became secret Santa's, often with the help from the Sears catalog Quote we shall have an old-fashioned Christmas tree for the grandchildren upstairs and I shall be their Santa Claus myself. President Benjamin Harrison said of the White House Holiday Plans in 1891. If my influence goes for ought in this busy world, I hope that my example will be followed by every family in the land. By the early 1900s Santa had claimed the leading role in America's commercial Christmas pageant. He appeared on Christmas cards, in newspaper advertisements, in department stores and stories plays, even in the new moving pictures. Norman Rockwell put him on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post. In 1924, macy's department store in New York City held its first Thanksgiving Day parade, welcoming Santa Claus to Harold Square. About that time the Post Office in Santa Claus, indiana, began receiving thousands of letters each year addressed to Santa Claus. Tourist attractions such as Santa's Candy Castle and Santa Claus Land later sprang up. The year 1937 saw the opening of the first training school for department store Santa's and all beyond. New York Clement Moore had described Santa Claus as a little old driver in a miniature sleigh. Thomas Nass had followed his lead with a plump, gnome-sized figure. In the first half of the 20th century, santa's physique expanded in every direction, especially with the brushwork of the Swedish-American artist Handan Sunbloom. In 1931, the Coca-Cola Company commissioned Sunbloom to paint Santa Claus for an advertisement campaign. For the next 35 years, sunbloom created Coca-Cola ads that showed a big, hearty Santa holding children in his lap, playing with electric trains, raiding the refrigerator and, of course, drinking Coke. People saw the ads everywhere in magazines, on billboards and drugstore soda fountains. The image of the warm, smiling, robust Santa Claus that most Americans have today came largely from those ads. An important addition came in a 1939 promotional giveaway from Chicago's Montgomery Ward Department Store Advertising editor Robert Louis May came up with the idea of an illustrated booklet with a story about a red-nosed reindeer named Rudolph who guides Santa's sleigh. Montgomery Ward gave out millions of these booklets. In 1947, songwriter Johnny Marx composed a song based on May's story. Jean Autry, the missing and cowboy, recorded the song two years later, spreading Rudolph's fame around the globe. By the mid-20th century, the long, circuitous route was complete. Santa Claus—rather Saint Nicholas the Bishop—never strong in the American tradition to begin with had almost completely disappeared in the United States. In his place, santa Claus had come to town. Isn't that a fascinating trip from the end of the Civil War all the way through to the Coca-Cola ads. And then, by the time I was born in 1974, the commercialization of Santa Claus had been in full swing for over three-quarters of a century, since the beginning of the 20th century. And with that let's return to our book, because this is our negative wisdom during this Christmas week Quote. But the stories of Saint Nicholas and Santa Claus are arguably true. In a more important way, they are morally true. They offer generosity, kindness, justice and self-sacrifice over various cruelty, injustice and self-indulgence. They are about the celebration of human closeness and decency in the caring for others. They are about families at the hearth in their totality. They are about the raising of sights and efforts towards a better life. The image of Saint Nicholas has changed many times through the years. He has always reflected people's longings and needs, whether that be of a handful of grain, a safe port and a storm or a gesture of love. Santa Claus is part of that evolving image. At his best, he stands for the virtues that Saint Nicholas champions—compassion, service, selflessness and largeness of spirit. There is one essential truth in the stories of Nicholas and Santa Claus—the goodness of the gift offered with no expectation of anything in return. The value of three bags tossed through a window and peter along ago does not lie in the gold they contained—the act of giving and the effects of the act make those bags priceless. That seems. Spirit lives in our time and a parent or another adult who with secret joy watches a wonderstruck child discover on Christmas morning that Santa has paid a nighttime visit. Please note that the advent of this era of commitment is undoubtedly not the easiest out of the four postludes. And isn't that the point of all of it? The mystery of all of it, the mystery of the wonderstruck child discovering on Christmas morning that a mysterious stranger had paid a night-time visit For me. Growing up without a strong sense of what Catholicism was or is, I knew vaguely of the mystery around the nativity. But the mystery around Christmas was exactly how Ralphie and Christmas Story explained it and perhaps the second greatest movie ever filmed Christmas movie that is the first, of course being it's a Wonderful Life. We touched on that last year in our mojo minute leading up to Christmas, so be sure to go back and check that one out if you have a listen to it. But let's go back to that wonderstruck child the joy of the parents to see the young child pondering the mystery of Santa Claus and how he comes and what he's about, and the poem that for over 150 years has shaped and guided parents on the basics of this mystery. For the adults, I think they probably think like I do the mystery of Santa Claus as a wonderstruck child gives way, and early adulthood, to the mystery of the nativity. And if that is the case, then all is right in the world. We are still, some 2000 years later, getting the mystery and the wonderment of the child born in the manger. God can certainly make our human lines that we draw crooked, he can certainly make them straight. And so it is in that same spirit that we listen to the mystery of Santa Claus that has captivated so many American children for over the last 150 years and I'm sure, is now captivating many worldwide children. We listen with that spirit to the reading of Twas the Night Before Christmas, written, at least attributed to Clement Clark Moore in 1823 and later published in 1837. Quote Twas the night before Christmas when all through the house not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. The stockings were hung by the chimney with care and hopes that St Nicholas soon would be there. The children were nestled all snug in their beds while visions of sugar plums danced in their heads, and Mama and her, kirchoff and I, in my cap, had just settled down for a long winter's nap when out on the lawn there arose such a clatter. I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter. Away to the children, I flew like a flash, tore up the shutters and threw up the sash. The moon on the breast of the new fallen snow gave a luster of midday to objects below, when what, to my wondering eyes, should appear but a miniature sleigh in eight, tiny reindeer With a little old driver, so lively and quick, I knew in a moment it must be St Nick, more rapid than eagles, his coasters. They came, he whistled and shouted and called them ben by name Now dasher, now dancer, now prancer. And vixen on Comet, on Cupid, on Donor and Blitzen. To the top of the porch, to the top of the wall. Now dash away, dash away, dash away. All as dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly when they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky. So up to the housetop, the coasters. They flew with a sleigh full of toys in St Nicholas too. And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof the prancing and pawing of each little hoof. As I drew in my hand and was turning around down the chimney, st Nicholas came with a bound. He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot, and his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot. A bundle of toys he flung over his back and he looked like a peddler, just opening his back. His eyes, how they twinkled. His dimples, how merry. His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry, his drool little mouth was drawn up like a bow and the beard of his chin was all white as snow, the stump of his pipe held tight in his teeth and the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath. He had a broad face and a little round belly that shook when he laughed, like a bowl full of jelly. He was chubby and plump all right, jolly old self, and I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself. A wink of his eye and a twist of his head. He soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread. He spoke not a word but went straight to his work and he filled all the stockings and then turned with a jerk and laying his finger aside his nose, he gave a nod and up the chimney he rose. He sprang to his sleigh to give his team a whistle and away. They all flew like the down of a thistle, but I heard him exclaim as he drove out of sight Happy Christmas to all and to all. A good night. May you all have a blessed and peaceful merry Christmas.

Keep getting your mojo on.