Thomas Nast (1840-1902) was a famous political cartoonist who invented such immediately recognizeable images as the Democrat Donkey, the Republican Elephant, and the lean, goateed Uncle Sam. When he died, Harper's Weekly called him the "Father of American Caricature." He was also largely responsible for the American concept of Santa's appearance as rotund and pipe-smoking.



In this image created in 1881, Santa is enjoying a long-stemmed clay in the fashion of the Dutch tavern pipe. The tavern pipe, like all clays, originated in the truly olden days of pipe smoking, before briar was discovered to be a wood apparently created by God just for smoking pipes. This pipe was called the tavern pipe because each table in a tavern would have a few of these pipes lying on it. When a patron wished to smoke, he would simply break off the last inch or so of stem, so that he would be putting a clean stem-end in his mouth. When the stem became too short, the pipe was discarded and replaced. Of course, if you own your own tavern pipe, or any other clay for that matter, such precautions are unnecessary and one may enjoy his or her pipe indefinitely.

Previous: The Politically Incorrect Santa

There was a time, back in the olden days, when pictures of Santa Claus inevitably portrayed him with a pipe. I think this was mostly due to Clement Moore's The Night Before Christmas.In these days when too many people have chosen political correctness over sanity, modern portrayals of Santa no longer include the pipe. As far as I am concerned, Santa isn't Santa without a pipe. A friend of mine has just emailed me this picture of Santa which he knew I would like. This one is by Tim Hildebrandt. The pipe pictured is of European origin, and is usually referred to as a "Tyrolean." A real pipe with such an appearance would probably have a bowl of porcelain, although I suppose it could be meerschaum. Mr. Hildebrandt even pictured Santa holding the pipe correctly. Although a porcelain bowl would be quite hot, probably too hot to hold, the bottom of the pipe which is actually touching his fingers is actually an air reservoir which does not contain any tobacco and is therefore only comfortably warm to the touch.



I have a couple of more politically incorrect Christmas postings up my sleeve, and at least one will involve another Santa with pipe. Never fear, there is also at least one about a gun.