With Christmas just around the corner, we’ve decided to take a closer look at five of our favorite Thomas Nast Santa Clauses, published between 1863 and 1886 in Harper’s Weekly.
Nast is widely known to be the creator of the jolly, red-coated Santa Claus that we know so well today. Let’s put it this way: before Nast’s Christmas drawings were popularized, Santa was often depicted as this beardless dude with a TURKEY pulling his sleigh:
Um, no thanks.
But these Thomas Nast Santas are more naughty than nice:
1.
Here’s Santa making an important phone call. Whatever he’s smoking seems to be doing the trick?
2.
And here we have Santa serenading us with some Christmas carols. Not exactly somebody we want coming down our chimney.
3.
Uhh… why is Santa holding something that looks strangely like a sharp object over this baby’s head??
4.
Not really a pleasant surprise.
5.
HOLY MOTHER OF GOD.
Happy December and watch out for Santa!
By: Maya
Contributor