How ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ Went From Box Office Dud to Accidental Christmas Tradition

(Written by Jason Serafino on Nov 30, 2018, at www.mentalfloss.com. Updated on Dec 22, 2022)

Director Frank Capra’s 1946 classic It’s a Wonderful Life is sacred in the holiday movie pantheon. It’s not as quotable as A Christmas Story (1983) or as lyrical as 1966’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, but the story of George Bailey has a universal message behind it that endures more than 70 years later. Though the movie is the quintessential Christmas tale today, when it was first released in 1946, audiences and critics were lukewarm toward the picture, resulting in a box office disappointment that killed Capra’s nascent production company, Liberty Films. In a strange twist, decades after it was first released, an unlikely clerical screw-up managed to turn It’s a Wonderful Life into the Christmastime staple we know today.

In the 1930s, Capra became a magnet for Academy Awards, directing movies like the screwball comedy It Happened One Night (1934) and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939). After Pearl Harbor, Capra knew he could contribute something to the war effort, so he took a post in Washington overseeing the development of U.S. propaganda films for the government — most notably the award-winning Why We Fight series of documentaries.

Upon returning to Hollywood from Washington in 1945, Capra —along with other wartime directors William Wyler and George Stevens— helped finance Liberty Films, an independent production company poised to give filmmakers the one thing they all dreamed of: freedom. The company’s first film would be an adaption of a short story titled “The Greatest Gift,” which would also appear in Good Housekeeping under the title “The Man Who Was Never Born,” and would be adapted for the screen as It’s a Wonderful Life. It’s one of the few movies Capra also received a screenwriting credit for, and with a proposed budget of $2 million, it was a huge gamble for Liberty.

Something Akin to a Nightmare

In the book Five Came Back: A Story of Hollywood and the Second World War, writer Mark Harris describes It’s a Wonderful Life’s production process as something akin to a nightmare. Script rewrites, a bloated shooting schedule, and an ever-changing crew cost the studio nearly all of the original $2 million budget — well before filming was even wrapped. The spending became such a concern for Capra’s partners at Liberty that George Stevens remarked, “Why the hell couldn’t it be springtime?” when he saw how much it cost the production to produce fake snow for shots. Capra bet Liberty’s future on audiences looking for some comforting nostalgia after the war, but he was about to see firsthand just how much the world had changed since he came back. 

The original plan was to release It’s a Wonderful Life in January 1947, after the Oscar deadlines, but when RKO —the film’s distributor— needed a movie to release in time for Christmas, Capra’s project was the easy solution. It opened just weeks after William Wyler’s major studio film The Best Years of Our Lives, a hard-hitting drama about a U.S. soldier coming home after the war to pick up his life again. The two films couldn’t be any more different, and the reviews reflected that.

Even at nearly three hours long, The Best Years of Our Lives was an absolute hit with critics and at the box office, recouping its budget multiple times over. It’s a Wonderful Life, with its inflated budget and saccharine tale touting old-timey values, was met with a whimper, making only an estimated $3.3 million against a $3.7 million budget. Wyler beat Capra in every way: reviews, box office, and awards. The Best Years of Our Lives won seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, while It’s a Wonderful Life received only a lone technical award—ironically for the fake snow Stevens loathed.

Liberty Films had borrowed more than $1.5 million to make the film, and with such a disappointing box office return, the production company was soon sold off to Paramount. Capra only directed five feature films afterwards, none of which ever reached the heights of his pre-war work. As unlikely as it seems today, It’s a Wonderful Life was seen as a flat disappointment destined for anonymity — until a clerical error changed its fate.

A Wonderful Free-for-All

In 1974, the movie entered the public domain after the film’s copyright holder simply forgot to file for a renewal. This meant that TV stations everywhere could play It’s a Wonderful Life all day and all night and not have to pay a cent for it. Networks aren’t necessarily shy about exploiting free Christmas content, and the film’s reemergence on television gave Capra’s story new life. While a post-World War II crowd may have rejected the movie’s sentiment, subsequent generations seem to revel in the opportunity to visit the nostalgic whimsy of it all.

 “It’s the damnedest thing I’ve ever seen,” Capra once told The Wall Street Journal about the film’s revival. “The film has a life of its own now and I can look at it like I had nothing to do with it. I’m like a parent whose kid grows up to be president. I’m proud… but it’s the kid who did the work. I didn’t even think of it as a Christmas story when I first ran across it. I just liked the idea.”

Legalities rewrote the history of It’s a Wonderful Life yet again in 1993. The Supreme Court’s previous ruling in Stewart v. Abend established a precedent that allowed the film’s original copyright owner —Republic Pictures— to regain its ownership of the movie. The ruling claimed that since Republic owned the copyright on the original short story the movie was based on, and the score for the film, they, in essence, still owned the movie. So what was once a near barrage of networks airing It’s a Wonderful Life has since been pared down to just one: NBC.

The network paid for exclusive rights to air the movie, which is why you often only see It’s a Wonderful Life on TV once or twice during the holidays. (Though in 2022, E! scheduled a couple all-day marathons of the film.) The film that killed a production company 70 years ago is now an annual television event and part of countless family traditions around the globe. It turns out Capra always knew what audiences wanted — he just needed to wait for the right clerical error to prove it.

Pays de Cocagne

 (J'ai trouvé la référence au « jardin de cocagne » dans une brochure touristique, et en cherchant, j'ai trouvé ceci sur wikipedia. En anglais, le « jardin de cocagne » pourrait être assimilé au « jardin del Eden ».

Le pays de Cocagne est, dans l'imaginaire de certaines cultures européennes, une sorte de paradis terrestre, une contrée miraculeuse où la nature déborde de générosité pour ses habitants et ses hôtes. Loin des famines et des guerres, Cocagne est une terre de fêtes et de bombances perpétuelles, où l'on prône le jeu et la paresse, et où le travail est proscrit.

Dans son livre La Faim et l’Abondance, Massimo Montanari situe la naissance du mythe de Cocagne entre le XII^e et le XIV^e siècle. On trouverait une des plus anciennes références dans les Carmina Burana, ces chants de clercs vagabonds rebelles et défroqués qui célébraient le vin, l'amour libre, le jeu et la débauche (les Goliards). Un personnage s’y présente comme l’abbé de Cocagne : « Ego sum abbas cucaniensis ».

En 1250 environ, un texte en ancien français intitulé le Fabliau de Coquaigne décrit ce pays de fêtes continuelles, du luxe et d’oisiveté, où plus on dort et plus on gagne. Il reprend le conte de 71 vers en moyen néerlandais Dit is van dat edele lant von Cockaenghen (Voici le noble pays de Cocagne).

Le pays d’abondance avait le même nom ou presque dans beaucoup de langues européennes, comme en anglais « the Land of Cockaigne », ou « Cokaygne », en italien « Cuccagna ». Les Flamands l’appelaient tantôt « Het Luilekkerland » (« pays des douces friandises »), tantôt « Kokanje », mais aussi « Cockaengen ». 

L’étymologie du nom a été très discutée :

• Cocagne vient, selon les uns, du canton de Cuccagna en Italie, sur la route de Rome à Loreto ; selon d'autres, du poète macaronique Teofilo Folengo, surnommé Merlin Coccaie, qui dans ses vers aurait décrit ce pays délicieux ; ou enfin d'une fête instituée à Naples sous un nom analogue, dans laquelle on distribuait au peuple des comestibles et du vin.
• Aux Pays-Bas, on a dit qu’il venait de celui de la ville de Kockengen dans la province d’Utrecht, ou bien de l’expression « het land van de honingkoeken » : « le pays des gâteaux de miel ».
• Le mot anglais « cockaigne » serait attesté dès 1305 environ, issu de l’ancien français « coquaigne ». Lui-même est d’origine obscure : provient-il de mots hérités du latin « coquere », « cuisiner » (par exemple l’anglais « to cook ») ou bien d’autres mots germaniques désignant les gâteaux, comme l’anglais « cake », le wallon « couque », etc ?
• Le chemin de Cocaigne allait du Cotentin jusqu'en Gascogne en direction de Saint-Jacques-de-Compostelle.
• Le terme pourrait également dériver de coque, cocagne ou coquaigne, qui désignait une boule de feuilles écrasées et compactées à la main par les cultivateurs d'une plante appelée le pastel, et qui était fabriquée dans le Lauragais et l'Albigeois du XV^e au XVII^e siècle. Sa zone de culture se trouvait dans le triangle Albi-Carcassonne-Toulouse. De cette plante était extraite une teinture bleue, d'où la couleur appelée « bleu pastel » ou « bleu de Cocagne ». La cocagne était ensuite mise à sécher et était vendue aux fabricants de teinture à un cours tellement élevé que toute la filière du pastel devint extrêmement riche. L'expression « pays de Cocagne » pourrait évoquer la richesse de cette région. Le mot cocagne viendrait lui-même du provençal coca « coque » ou « gâteau »

De nos jours, l'expression reste particulièrement présente non seulement dans le langage (dialecte picard, ch'ti, champenois...) mais aussi dans l'imaginaire du Nord de la France.

La Saturnalia, los ancestros de las Navidades

 (Un texto de Arístides Mínguez Baños publicado el 21 de diciembre de 2019 en zendalibros.com) 

Llevo 29 años batiéndome el cobre en las trincheras de institutos públicos, usando el Latín, la Cultura Clásica o el Griego como armas evangelizadoras, en aras de conseguir una sociedad más culta, más reflexiva, más humana y, por ende, más justa, libre y consecuente. Período tras período, al inicio de cada curso, algún zangolotino me pone a prueba, tentándome como un maletilla de abarcas de esparto tienta con su capote deshilachado a su primer morlaco. Me asalta en los primeros envites, tal vez a fin de hacerse el gallito entre sus polluelas: “Profesor, ¿para qué sirve el Latín / Griego / Cultura Clásica?”. Al inicio de mi carrera, fiel a mi espíritu combativo e impetuoso, más agitador que provocador, respondía al chichinabo con lindezas tales como “para que un ceporro como tú me haga una pregunta tan necia y estólida como ésa. Si no comprendes alguna de esas palabras, coge un diccionario, si sabes lo que es, o aguarda unos meses para descubrirlas, gracias a saber latín”. Hoy, mucho más sosegado —o vencido mi ánimo por la desidia e incultura reinante— me limito a ladrar entre gruñidos al osado o ni siquiera contesto a su impertinencia.

En otro sitio confesé el gravísimo pecado cometido por mí contra la actual sociedad materialista, utilitarista, inmediata, vacua e inane, al haber elegido ser profesor de lenguas y cultura clásicas y partirme la cara en su defensa. Causa hastío que por pura y vaga ignorancia, que no se recatan en disimular, la población cuestione o desprecie todo lo relacionado con las materias que se han constituido en mi trabajo y en mi pasión.

"Lo que la mayor parte ignora es que estos festejos hunden sus raíces en la Roma antigua, que seguimos siendo romanos en la manera de celebrar la venida del Redentor"

Con mis alumnos de Cultura Clásica hemos hecho experimentos para constatar qué saben sus compañeros, profesores o vecinos sobre la presencia del mundo grecolatino en diferentes facetas del mundo actual: física, química, matemáticas, filosofía, historia (palabras todas ellas griegas, por cierto), publicidad, etc. Los resultados son desoladores. Pocos saben explicar por qué se llama lunes al lunes (viene de Lunae dies, día de la luna; Monday en inglés, donde moon ha evolucionado a «mon»). Incluso algunos docentes de química son incapaces de ver rastros del griego en el cloro, bromo o yodo o de identificar personajes de la mitología en el mercurio, paladio o plutonio. Acongoja que digan que Homero es el padre de los Simpson o que Clío es un coche.

Estos días, en los que en breve fenece el año, celebraremos las Navidades. Como de todo debe haber en las viñas de Dionisos, unos las considerarán unas festividades entrañables, mientras que otros echarán pestes de ellas. Lo que la mayor parte ignora es que estos festejos hunden sus raíces en la Roma antigua, que seguimos siendo romanos en la manera de celebrar la venida del Redentor, que la Iglesia adaptó a su credo para honrar el nacimiento de su Mesías lo que los antiguos hacían a fin de conmemorar a Saturno: las Saturnalia.

Leyendo el imprescindible Un año en la antigua Roma, de Néstor F. Marqués, descubrimos que las primeras Saturnalia tuvieron lugar el 17 de diciembre del 497 a. C., coincidiendo con la consagración del templo de Saturno en el Foro de Roma, a los pies del Capitolio.

"Fue el mismo Saturno quien enseñó al hombre a cultivar los campos. Los antiguos romanos lo convirtieron, pues, en una benéfica divinidad agraria"

Saturno, al que los helenos llamaron Cronos, era el segundo de los reyes que rigieron la corte divina. De este titán tal vez conservemos una imagen negativa por culpa de las pinturas de Rubens o Goya, que lo representan devorando a sus hijos ante una profecía que auguraba que uno de éstos lo destronaría. Como así fue: Zeus liberó a sus hermanos del vientre paterno y le arrebató la corona. Pero durante el reinado de Saturno la humanidad conoció la Edad de Oro, de la que nos dan poético testimonio Hesíodo en sus Trabajos y días, Virgilio en sus Geórgicas, Ovidio en sus Metamorfosis o, en homenaje a los anteriores, don Miguel de Cervantes en el Capítulo XI de la primera parte del Quijote.

En dicha Edad de Oro no existían diferencias sociales, el ser humano no debía ganar el sustento con el sudor de la frente, todos eran libres y compartían los frutos de la tierra, que brotaban de manera espontánea. Fue el mismo Saturno quien enseñó al hombre a cultivar los campos. Los antiguos romanos lo convirtieron, pues, en una benéfica divinidad agraria. Sus festejos coincidían con el fin de las tareas de siembra, y se encomendaban a él para que los cultivos soportaran el largo período en el que latían bajo tierra, coincidiendo con la etapa en la que la diosa Proserpina debía permanecer en el inframundo con su esposo Plutón, antes de que vieran la luz los primeros brotes en primavera.

Acabada la siembra entonces, podían tomarse un descanso, incluso los esclavos. En sus inicios las Saturnalia sólo duraban un día, el 17 de diciembre, pero la sociedad las acogió tan bien que se fueron extendiendo hasta abarcar del 17 al 23 del último mes del año.

El templo de Saturno del Foro, aparte de usarse para guardar el tesoro nacional en el Aerarium, cobijaba una estatua de la divinidad que durante todo el año estaba atada con una maroma trenzada con lana, para que el dios no abandonara la ciudad y dejara a los romanos a su suerte. Las saturnalia se iniciaban cuando un sacerdote, capite aperto, con la cabeza descubierta (a todos los demás dioses se le ofrecían ritos con la testa cubierta) sacrificaba unos animales en honor del titán y cortaba la cuerda que lo amarraba dejándolo libre. Al grito de IO SATVRNALIA comenzaban unas jornadas de fraternidad y cierto desenfreno.

"Los asistentes a la ceremonia eran agasajados con un banquete a costas del erario, en el que se devoraban los animales sacrificados y se bebían ingentes cantidades de vino"

Los asistentes a la ceremonia eran agasajados con un banquete a costas del erario, en el que se devoraban los animales sacrificados y se bebían ingentes cantidades de vino. A él podían asistir todos los habitantes que lo deseasen, libres o esclavos, pobres o ricos, extranjeros o nacionales. Era una oportunidad para confraternizar en una sociedad en la que las diferencias sociales estaban más que marcadas. En lo que muchos consideraban el mejor día del año, el 17, escuelas y negocios cerraban, y ningún criminal era ejecutado o juzgado.

Sagunto alberga la Domus Baebia, el faro al que miramos todos los que amamos la Cultura Clásica. Es la sede de la asociación Ludere et discere, cuyos mascarones de proa son Charo Marco y Amparo Moreno, las mejores sacerdotisas con las que podemos soñar los amantes de la romanidad para divulgar y poner en valor todo lo relacionado con el mundo grecolatino. Ambas, junto a Mª Teresa Beltrán, Mª Teresa Cases y Mercedes García, son las responsables de una página de libre acceso, Festa Saturnalia, con la que podemos documentarnos a fondo sobre la naturaleza de estas celebraciones y encontrar textos y actividades para profundizar en su conocimiento de manera amena, exquisitamente documentada.

Gracias a ellas y al mencionado Marqués descubrimos que en estas fechas excepcionalmente se permitía jugar y apostar en público (solía estar restringido a tabernas y tugurios semejantes) e incluso se organizaban sorteos de lotería. Los ciudadanos abarrotaban las calles, comían y bebían sin freno en los cientos de tenderetes habilitados y se cubrían con un gorro cónico, el pilleus, con el que se tocaban los esclavos cuando conseguían la libertad, simbolizando la igualdad de todos los hombres.

Se subvertía el orden social: los amos sentaban a sus esclavos en sus lechos de banquete, triclinia, y les servían la cena, tolerándoles bromas y confianzas, que el resto del año serían reprendidas. Hay, incluso, quienes ven en estas fechas el origen histórico de la cesta de navidad: los clientes, ciudadanos de clase social desfavorecida, que se ponían al servicio de un patronus de rango socioeconómico superior, debían acudir todas las mañanas a ponerse a su disposición en la ceremonia de la salutatio matutina. Coincidiendo con las saturnalia recibían las sportula, unos canastos de mimbre con bebida y alimentos.

"Se aprovechaba esta cena, el último día de las Saturnalia, para intercambiar regalos con la familia."

Las familias se reunían, muchas por única vez en el año, para celebrar banquetes en común, en los que vestían sus mejores galas. En estas comidas se comía un pastel con miel y frutos secos, en el que se escondía un haba seca. Quien la encontrara era coronado como Princeps Saturnalicius y todos los presentes debían acatar sus órdenes. Muy ciego hay que estar para no descubrir en esto el origen de lo que hoy en día llaman Roscón de Reyes, con el que se pone fin a casi dos semanas de celebraciones.

Se aprovechaba esta cena, el último día de las Saturnalia, para intercambiar regalos con la familia. A los niños se les regalaban muñecos de arcilla o cera, sigilla, y a los mayores velas, que se prendían por todos los hogares para alumbrar estos entrañables días, costumbre que algunas poblaciones hodiernas han llevado al paroxismo con sus campañas de iluminación navideña. Estos regalos habían sido comprados en mercadillos que se montaban con ocasión de las saturnales.

Los actuales carnavales también parecen tener sus orígenes en las chirigotas que se montaban el segundo día, con ciudadanos disfrazados que recorrían las calles gastando bromas y cantando canciones burlescas.

"Estas festividades estaban tan arraigadas que, cuando el cristianismo se convirtió en religión oficial del imperio, las trasladó unos días para que comenzaran el 24 de diciembre, presunto día del nacimiento de Jesús"

Inclusive en estos remotos tiempos había quienes renegaban de estos días, en los que todo tenía que ser almibarado, y se encerraban en sus cuartos hasta que pasara esa empalagosa tormenta. El cordobés Séneca alertaba de los peligros de los excesos que se cometían en las saturnalia y Plinio el Joven se recluía en su gabinete, sin querer ver a nadie, hasta que concluyeran las mismas.

Estas festividades estaban tan arraigadas que, cuando el cristianismo se convirtió en religión oficial del imperio, la casta eclesial, ante la imposibilidad de erradicarlas, las trasladó unos días para que comenzaran el 24 de diciembre, presunto día del nacimiento de Jesús, pero que en realidad conmemoraba en el día 25 el Nacimiento del Sol Invicto, dios vinculado al culto de Mitra, quien también moría y resucitaba, como Cristo.

Como ves, querido visitante de esta Cueva del Fauno: NIHIL NOVVM SVB SOLE, nada nuevo bajo el sol. Cuando alguien ose decir en tu presencia que para qué sirve hoy el latín, compadécete de su ignorancia, abomina de su ingratitud y demuéstrale que éste está mucho más vivo de lo que sus ciegos y utilitaristas ojos son capaces de ver.

Por lo pronto, IO SATVRNALIA!

Other, others, the other or another?

(From English Grammar Today - https://dictionary.cambridge.org/grammar/british-grammar/other-others)

Other

Other means ‘additional or extra’, or ‘alternative’, or ‘different types of’.
 

Other as a determiner
We can use other with singular uncountable nouns and with plural nouns:

* The embassy website has general information about visas. Other travel information can be obtained
by calling the freephone number. (additional or extra information)
* Some music calms people; other music has the opposite effect. (different types of music)
* What other books by Charles Dickens have you read, apart from ‘Oliver Twist’? (additional or extra
books)
* This one’s too big. Do you have it in other sizes? (alternative sizes)

If we use other before a singular countable noun, we must use another determiner before it:

* I don’t like the red one. I prefer the other colour.
Not: I prefer other colour.
* Jeremy is at university; our other son is still at school.
* He got 100% in the final examination. No other student has ever achieved that.
* There’s one other thing we need to discuss before we finish.
 

Warning:
Other as a determiner does not have a plural form:
* Mandy and Charlotte stayed behind. The other girls went home.

Not: The others girls …

Other as a pronoun
We can use other as a pronoun. As a pronoun, other has a plural form, others:
* We have to solve this problem, more than any other, today.
* I’ll attach two photos to this email and I’ll send others tomorrow. 

The other

The other as a determiner
The other with a singular noun means the second of two things or people, or the opposite of a set of
two:
*This computer here is new. The other computer is about five years old.
* A: D’you know the Indian restaurant in Palmer Street?
B: Yes
A: Well, the gift shop is on the other side of the street, directly opposite. (the opposite side)

The other with a plural noun means the remaining people or things in a group or set:
* Joel and Karen are here, but where are the other kids? (the remaining people in a group)
* Where are the other two dinner plates? I can only find four. (the remaining things in a set – here six
plates)

The other as a pronoun

We can use the other as a pronoun, especially to refer back to something which has been mentioned already in the sentence:

* He had his hat in one hand and a bunch of flowers in the other.
* She has two kittens, one is black and the other is all white.

Another

When we use the indefinite article an before other, we write it as one word: another. Another means ‘one
more’ or ‘an additional or extra’, or ‘an alternative or different’.

Another as a determiner
We use another with singular nouns:

* Would you like another cup of coffee?
* You’ve met Linda, but I have another sister who you haven’t met, called Margaret.
* I don’t like this place. Is there another café around here we could go to? (alternative or different)

Another as a pronoun
We can use another as a pronoun:

* The applications are examined by one committee, then passed on to another.

Other, others, the other or another: typical errors

When other is a determiner, it does not have a plural form:

* These boxes are for books. The other boxes are for clothes.
Not: The others boxes …

When other as a pronoun refers to more than one person or thing, it takes the plural form, others:

* Some scientists think we should reduce the number of flights to prevent global warming; others
disagree.
Not: … other disagree.

Other must have a determiner before it when it comes in front of a singular countable noun. If the
noun is indefinite (e.g. a book, a woman, an idea), we use another:

* I’ve posted the first package. What shall I do with that other package?
Not: What shall I do with other package?

* After a month in Bolivia, I was ready to move to another country.

 Not: … to move to other country.

We write another as one word: 

* There is another car park a little further down the same street.
Not: There is an other car park …

Another is singular. We don’t use it with plural nouns:

* Other interesting places to visit include the old harbour and the castle.
Not: Another interesting places to visit …

Why Does Santa Claus Come Down the Chimney?

(A text by Jocelyn Sears published on https://www.mentalfloss.com on Dec 22nd, 2018)

Santa Claus as we know him today has only existed since the 19th century, and he first slid down the chimney in a 1812 book by Washington Irving. But the fireplace served as a venue for magical visitors long before Santa Claus. During the 15^th century, the French scholar Petrus Mamoris became concerned about a widespread belief that witches could pass through solid objects like walls and closed doors in order to enter homes. Believing Christians were granting too much power to the occult, Mamoris offered a practical explanation: witches, elves, and the like simply entered via the chimney. This idea gained widespread cultural currency. In Renaissance-era fairy tales, fairies appeared via chimneys, and during the same period, witches were said to fly up their chimneys on broomsticks to attend Sabbat meetings.

Throughout European folklore, the hearth and chimney act as a liminal space connecting the natural and supernatural worlds. According to legend, many supernatural creatures exploit this special intermediary space to enter homes—for good or ill. Scottish and English legend feature the brownie, a household spirit that aids in domestic tasks, but only at night, and enters and exits via the chimney. In Slovenia, a shape-shifting fairy called the Skrat brings riches to human families who cultivate his favor, flying down the chimney in a fiery form when delivering money. According to Celtic lore, a nursery bogie called the bodach sneaks down chimneys and kidnaps children. Some chimney-traveling spirits appear specifically during the winter holidays. In Greece, goblins known as Kallikantzaroi slip down the chimney to wreak havoc during the Twelve Days of Christmas. Italy’s La Befana, sometimes called the Christmas witch, delivers gifts the night before Epiphany, leaving her presents in shoes set by the fireplace.

While La Befana wasn’t making widespread deliveries in the early United States, other mythical holiday gift-bringers were. Pelznichol—also called Pelznikel, Belsnickel, or Bellschniggle—traveled among German immigrant communities in 19th-century Pennsylvania, scaring naughty children and rewarding good ones. This whip-wielding wild man was a bit more intimidating than jolly old Santa Claus, but he served a similar purpose.

According to a December 19, 1827 issue of the Philadelphia Gazette, “He is the precursor of the jolly old elfe ‘Christkindle’ or ‘St. Nicholas,’ and makes his personal appearance, dressed in skins or old clothes, his face black, a bell, a whip, and a pocket full of cakes or nuts ... It is no sooner dark than the Bellschniggle’s bell is heard flitting from house to house ... He slips down the chimney, at the fairy hour of midnight, and deposits his presents quietly in the prepared stocking.” Pelznichol comes from the German word pelz, meaning hide or fur coat, and Nichol, meaning Nicholas. Literally “Furry Nicholas,” Pelznichol was a forerunner to the American Santa Claus—and a mythical companion of the same ancient saint.

While the character of Santa Claus draws from numerous mythical sources, his namesake is St. Nicholas, the 4th-century Bishop of Myra, an ancient town in what is now Turkey. In the most famous tale involving St. Nicholas, the bishop anonymously delivers bags of gold to a poor family to use as dowries for their daughters, keeping the father from selling the girls into prostitution. Early versions of the story have the saint tossing the money through the window—appropriate, given that St. Nicholas lived during the 3rd and 4th centuries, 900 years before the chimney. But as the story changed over time, St. Nicholas began dropping the gold down the chimney. A 14th-century fresco in a Serbian church shows the chimney had become part of the legend by the early Renaissance period.

Thanks to his generous dowry gifts and a host of miracles—including resurrecting a group of murdered boys who had been chopped into pieces—St. Nicholas became the patron saint of children, and his feast day was associated with special treats for the little ones. By the 16th century, it was tradition for Dutch children to leave their shoes on the hearth the night before the Feast of St. Nicholas. They would then wake to find the shoes filled with candy and presents, which they believed the saint had lowered down the chimney. Though Catholic saints were renounced during the Reformation, St. Nicholas stayed popular in the Low Countries, even among some Dutch Protestants, and Dutch settlers brought their traditions to North America.

The name Santa Claus is an Americanized version of the abbreviated Dutch name for St. Nicholas, Sinterklaas, but Dutch colonists did not popularize him, as most of these were saint-averse Reformation Dutch, and their influence waned once New Amsterdam became New York. In 1809, it was writer Washington Irving who helped spark an interest in St. Nicholas when he featured the saint in his satirical Knickerbocker’s History of New York, which made fun of antiquarians obsessed with the city’s Dutch heritage. In an expanded version of Knickerbocker’s published in 1812, Irving added a reference—the first known—to St. Nicholas “rattl[ing] down the chimney” himself, rather than simply dropping the presents down.

It was the famous poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas”—known as “’Twas the Night Before Christmas”—that popularized the idea of Santa Claus tumbling down the chimney. Initially published anonymously, the poem first appeared in print in 1823 and it wasn’t until 1844 that Clement Clark Moore, a professor of Hebrew and Oriental Languages at a bible college, claimed the work, though his authorship is still disputed by some. The poem features Santa Claus descending down the chimney “with a bound,” then rising up the chimney after delivering his gifts. The poem began to be published annually in newspapers and magazines, and the illustrator and political cartoonist Thomas Nast cemented its vision of Santa Claus with his drawings of a plump, cheerful, bearded man delivering gifts in a sleigh.

Millions of American children came to believe that Santa Claus slid down the chimney to deliver their presents. But what does Santa do if there’s no chimney? As coal and wood stoves took the place of open fireplaces in many American homes, a parallel tradition developed: Santa squeezed down the stove pipe. By 1857, this image was common enough that The New York Times referred to it as a given.

It might seem ridiculous to imagine the portly gift-bringer somehow stuffing himself into a six-inch stove pipe, but during the mid-19th century, Santa Claus was envisioned differently in one key way: he was miniature. In his poem, Moore calls Santa “a jolly old elf,” suggesting his size is elfin: he is a “little old driver” in a “miniature sleigh” with “eight tiny reindeer.” He has a “droll little mouth,” and it’s his “little round belly” that “shook when he laughed, like a bowlful of jelly.”

Illustrations from the time, including many of Nast’s drawings, show a miniature Santa who needs to stand on a chair to reach the stockings on the mantelpiece. But while this elfin Santa could slide easily down the chimney, even he would have difficulty squeezing through a stove pipe. In published letters to Santa, some children inquired about his method of entry: “Do you crawl down stove pipes?” Of course, Santa Claus is magical, so while children may have been curious about the practicalities involved, it wasn’t a barrier to belief. One boy told Santa confidently in 1903, “I watch for you every night in the stove.”

Adults were not as sanguine. In 1893, Harper’s Weekly published a worried opinion piece about the decline of Santa Claus. The stove pipe made it harder to believe in Santa, the author observed, but the rise of steam radiators and hot-air heating made it essentially impossible:

"We know of no contemporary personage who is suffering more from allowing himself to drop behind the times than our friend Santa Claus. […] The downward course of Santa Claus began with the introduction of the cast-iron stove. As long as the old-fashioned fireplace lasted he was secure. As the children gathered around this romantic old fraud, toasting their toes while their backs gradually but surely congealed, the story of Santa Claus and his chimney-descending habits seemed entirely probable. There was scarcely a single stumbling-block for faith. […] But after the arrival of the comfortable albeit unromantic stove, when the child was told of Santa Claus, he simply looked at the pipe and put his tongue in his cheek. Still, he tried to believe in him, and succeeded after a fashion. Then even the stove disappeared in many households, to be succeeded by the steam-radiator or a hot-air hole in the floor. The notion of Santa Claus coming down a steam-pipe or up through a register was even more absurd than the idea of his braving the dimensions of a stove-pipe. […] Now it occurs to us that all this might have been avoided if people had had the wisdom to keep Santa Claus up with the times. […] When the air-tight stove was introduced, a mode of ingress other than the chimney should have been provided."

This author needn’t have worried; Americans were not about to let Santa Claus disappear from cultural memory. Indeed, as the 20th century dawned, he became only more popular, as businesses enlisted him for copious advertising campaigns, like the famous 1930s Coca-Cola ads designed by Haddon Sundblom.