Editing Father Christmas (section)

====As secret nocturnal visitor====

The nocturnal visitor aspect of the American myth took much longer to become naturalised. From the 1840s it had been accepted readily enough that presents were left for children by unseen hands overnight on Christmas Eve, but the receptacle was a matter of debate,<ref name="CakesCharacters183-184">{{cite book | title=Cakes and Characters: An English Christmas Tradition | publisher=Prospect Books | author=Henisch, Bridget Ann | year=1984 | location=London | pages=183–184 | isbn=0-907325-21-1}}</ref> as was the nature of the visitor. Dutch tradition had [[St. Nicholas|St Nicholas]] leaving presents in shoes laid out on 5 December,<ref>{{Cite web|title=Sinterklaas|url=https://www.holland.com/global/tourism/activities/events/sinterklaas.htm|access-date=28 December 2021|website=NL Netherlands|date=3 May 2011}}</ref> while in France shoes were filled by [[Père Noël]].<ref name="CakesCharacters183-184"/> The older shoe custom and the newer American stocking custom trickled only slowly into Britain, with writers and illustrators remaining uncertain for many years.<ref name="CakesCharacters183-184"/> Although the stocking eventually triumphed,<ref name="CakesCharacters183-184"/> the shoe custom had still not been forgotten by 1901 when an illustration entitled ''Did you see Santa Claus, Mother?'' was accompanied by the verse "Her Christmas dreams / Have all come true; / Stocking o'erflows / and likewise shoe."<ref name="ILN, Dec1901">{{cite journal | url=http://find.galegroup.com/iln/infomark.do?&source=gale&prodId=ILN&userGroupName=herlib&tabID=T003&docPage=article&docId=HN3100175837&type=multipage&contentSet=LTO&version=1.0 | title=Did you see Santa Claus, Mother? | journal=Illustrated London News | date=28 December 1901 |  pages=1001}}</ref>

[[File:Fairy Gifts by JA Fitzgerald, Illustrated London News 19 Dec 1868.jpg|thumb|alt=Engraving of fairies leaving gifts in shoes by the fireplace|''Fairy Gifts'' by [[John Anster Fitzgerald|JA Fitzgerald]] showing nocturnal visitors in 1868, before the American Santa Claus tradition took hold.]]
Before Santa Claus and the stocking became ubiquitous, one English tradition had been for fairies to visit on Christmas Eve to leave gifts in shoes set out in front of the fireplace.<ref name="Graphic1878">{{cite news | title=Christmas Fairy Gifts | work=The Graphic | date=28 December 1878 | author-link=Arthur Locker | first=Arthur | last=Locker | location=London}}</ref><ref name="ILN, Dec1868">{{cite news | url=http://find.galegroup.com/iln/infomark.do?&source=gale&prodId=ILN&userGroupName=herlib&tabID=T003&docPage=article&docId=HN3100534039&type=multipage&contentSet=LTO&version=1.0 | title=Fairy Gifts | work=Illustrated London News | date=19 December 1868 | access-date=6 February 2016 | author=MJ | location=London | pages=607}}</ref>

Aspects of the American Santa Claus myth were sometimes adopted in isolation and applied to Father Christmas. In a short fantasy piece, the editor of the ''Cheltenham Chronicle'' in 1867 dreamt of being seized by the collar by Father Christmas, "rising up like a Geni of the Arabian Nights ... and moving rapidly through the ''aether''". Hovering over the roof of a house, Father Christmas cries 'Open Sesame' to have the roof roll back to disclose the scene within.<ref name="Cheltenham Chronicle1867">{{cite news | title=Our Christmas Corner. The Editor's Dream. | work=Cheltenham Chronicle | date=24 December 1867 | location=Cheltenham | pages=8}}</ref>

It was not until the 1870s that the tradition of a nocturnal Santa Claus began to be adopted by ordinary people.<ref name="Huttonp117-118"/> The poem ''The Baby's Stocking'', which was syndicated to local newspapers in 1871, took it for granted that readers would be familiar with the custom, and would understand the joke that the stocking might be missed as "Santa Claus wouldn't be looking for anything half so small."<ref name="EssexNewsman1871">{{cite news | title=The Baby's Stocking | work=Essex Halfpenny Newsman | date=8 April 1871 | location=Chelmsford | pages=1}} The poem was also published in ''Leicester Chronicle and the Leicestershire Mercury'', Leicester, 11 March 1871, page 2.</ref> On the other hand, when ''The Preston Guardian'' published its poem ''Santa Claus and the Children'' in 1877 it felt the need to include a long preface explaining exactly who Santa Claus was.<ref name="PrestonGuardian1877">{{cite news | url=http://find.galegroup.com/bncn/infomark.do?&enlarge=&source=gale&prodId=BNCN&userGroupName=herlib&tabID=T012&docPage=&docId=Y3207487747&type=multipage&contentSet=LTO&version=1.0 | title=Christmas Rhymes: Santa Claus and the Children | work=The Preston Guardian | date=22 December 1877 | access-date=16 February 2016 | location=Preston | pages=3}}</ref>

[[Folkloristics|Folklorists]] and [[antiquarian]]s were not, it seems, familiar with the new local customs and [[Ronald Hutton]] notes that in 1879 the newly formed [[The Folklore Society|Folk-Lore Society]], ignorant of American practices, was still "excitedly trying to discover the source of the new belief".<ref name="Huttonp117-118"/>

In January 1879 the antiquarian [[Edwin Lees]] wrote to ''[[Notes and Queries]]'' seeking information about an observance he had been told about by 'a country person': "On Christmas Eve, when the inmates of a house in the country retire to bed, all those desirous of a present place a stocking outside the door of their bedroom, with the expectation that some mythical being called Santiclaus will fill the stocking or place something within it before the morning. This is of course well known, and the master of the house does in reality place a Christmas gift secretly in each stocking; but the giggling girls in the morning, when bringing down their presents, affect to say that Santiclaus visited and filled the stockings in the night. From what region of the earth or air this benevolent Santiclaus takes flight I have not been able to ascertain ..."<ref name="N&Q1879Jan">{{cite journal | url=https://archive.org/stream/s5notesqueries11londuoft/s5notesqueries11londuoft_djvu.txt | title=Gifts Placed in the Stocking at Christmas | author=Lees, Edwin | journal=Notes & Queries | date=25 January 1879 | volume=11 | issue=Fifth series | pages=66}}</ref> Lees received several responses, linking 'Santiclaus' with the continental traditions of [[St. Nicholas|St Nicholas]] and 'Petit Jesus' ([[Christkind]]),<ref name="N&Q1879July">{{cite journal | url=https://archive.org/stream/s5notesqueries11londuoft/s5notesqueries11londuoft_djvu.txt | title=Gifts Placed in the Stocking at Christmas | author=Lees, Edwin | journal=Notes & Queries | date=5 July 1879 | volume=12 | issue=Fifth series | pages=11–12}}</ref> but no-one mentioned Father Christmas and no-one was correctly able to identify the American source.<ref name="TimesDec1956"/><ref name="EnglishmansChristmas114">{{cite book | title=An Englishman's Christmas: A Social History | publisher=The Harvester Press | author=Pimlott, JAR | year=1978 | location=Hassocks, Suffolk | pages=114 | isbn=0-391-00900-1}}</ref>

By the 1880s the American myth had become firmly established in the popular English imagination, the nocturnal visitor sometimes being known as Santa Claus and sometimes as Father Christmas (often complete with a hooded robe).<ref name="Huttonp117-118"/> An 1881 poem imagined a child awaiting a visit from Santa Claus and asking "Will he come like Father Christmas, / Robed in green and beard all white? / Will he come amid the darkness? / Will he come at all tonight?"<ref name="Huttonp117-118"/><ref name="LeedsMercury1881">{{cite news | title=The Children's Column | work=The Leeds Mercury Weekly Supplement | date=24 December 1881 | location=Leeds | pages=7}}</ref> The French writer [[Max O'Rell]], who evidently thought the custom was established in the England of 1883, explained that Father Christmas "''descend par la cheminée, pour remplir de bonbons et de joux les bas que les enfants ont suspendus au pied du lit.''" [comes down the chimney, to fill with sweets and games the stockings that the children have hung from the foot of the bed].<ref name="EnglishmansChristmas114"/> And in her poem ''Agnes: A Fairy Tale'' (1891), Lilian M Bennett treats the two names as interchangeable: "Old Santa Claus is exceedingly kind, / but he won't come to Wide-awakes, you will find... / Father Christmas won't come if he can hear / You're awake. So to bed my bairnies dear."<ref name="ManchesterTimesFeb1891">{{cite news | title=Agnes: A Fairy Tale (part I) | work=Manchester Times | date=20 February 1891 | author=Bennett, Lilian M | location=Manchester}}</ref> The commercial availability from 1895 of Tom Smith & Co's ''Santa Claus Surprise Stockings'' indicates how deeply the American myth had penetrated English society by the end of the century.<ref name="ArmstrongPhD263">
{{cite book | url=http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/9890/1/431569.pdf | title=The Intimacy of Christmas: Festive Celebration in England c. 1750-1914 | publisher=University of York (unpublished) | author=Armstrong, Neil R | year=2004 | pages=263 | access-date=28 January 2016 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160204035031/http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/9890/1/431569.pdf | archive-date=4 February 2016 | url-status=live}}
</ref>

Representations of the developing character at this period were sometimes labelled 'Santa Claus' and sometimes 'Father Christmas', with a tendency for the latter still to allude to old-style associations with charity and with food and drink, as in several of these [[Punch (magazine)|''Punch'']] illustrations:

<gallery mode="packed" heights="175px" caption="Father Christmas in Punch, 1890s">
File:The Awakening of Father Christmas, Punch, Dec 1891.jpg|alt=1891 engraving of Father Christmas being awoken by a figure representing Charity|''The Awakening of Father Christmas'' 1891
File:A Christmas Puzzle, Punch, Dec 1895.jpg|alt=1895 engraving of Father Christmas asking a ragged child "Where's your stocking?"|"Where's your stocking?" 1895
File:Father Christmas Up-To-Date, Punch, Dec 1896.jpg|alt=1896 engraving of Father Christmas driving an early car|''Father Christmas Up-To-Date'' 1896
File:Father Christmas Not Up-To-Date, Punch, Dec 1897.jpg|alt=1897 engraving of Father Christmas|''Father Christmas Not Up-To-Date'' 1897
</gallery>