Editing Father Christmas

{{Short description|Folkloric figure originating in England}}
{{About|the Christmas character of English folklore and myth| the correspondingly-named character in other countries and languages | List of Christmas and winter gift-bringers|other uses|Father Christmas (disambiguation)}}
{{EngvarB|date=December 2013}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=October 2020}}
[[File:Christmas with the Yule Log, Illustrated London News, 23 Dec 1848.jpg|alt=Engraving of Father Christmas 1848|250px|thumb|1848 depiction of Father Christmas crowned with a holly wreath, holding a staff and a [[wassail]] bowl and carrying the [[Yule log]]]]
'''Father Christmas''' is the traditional English name for the [[personification]] of [[Christmas]]. Although now known as a [[Christmas gift-bringer]], and typically considered to be synonymous with [[Santa Claus]], he was originally part of a much older and unrelated [[English folklore|English folkloric]] tradition. The recognisably modern figure of the English Father Christmas developed in the late [[Victorian era|Victorian period]], but Christmas had been personified for centuries before then.<ref name="EnglishYear385">{{cite book | title=The English Year | publisher=Penguin Books | author=Roud, Steve | year=2006 | location=London | pages=385–387 | isbn=978-0-140-51554-1}}</ref>

English personifications of Christmas were first recorded in the 15th century, with Father Christmas himself first appearing in the mid 17th century in the aftermath of the [[English Civil War]]. The [[Puritans|Puritan]]-controlled English government had legislated to abolish Christmas, considering it [[popish]], and had outlawed its traditional customs. [[Cavalier|Royalist]] political [[pamphleteer]]s, linking the old traditions with their cause, adopted Old Father Christmas as the symbol of 'the good old days' of feasting and good cheer. Following the [[Restoration (England)|Restoration]] in 1660, Father Christmas's profile declined. His character was maintained during the late 18th and into the 19th century by the Christmas folk plays later known as [[mummers' play]]s.

Until Victorian times, Father Christmas was concerned with adult feasting and merry-making. He had no particular connection with children, nor with the giving of presents, nocturnal visits, stockings, chimneys or reindeer. But as later Victorian Christmases developed into child-centric family festivals, Father Christmas became a bringer of gifts. 

The popular American myth of [[Santa Claus]] arrived in England in the 1850s and Father Christmas started to take on Santa Claus's attributes. By the 1880s the new customs had become established, with the nocturnal visitor sometimes being known as Santa Claus and sometimes as Father Christmas. He was often illustrated wearing a long red hooded gown trimmed with white fur.

Most residual distinctions between Father Christmas and Santa Claus largely faded away in the early years of the 20th century, and modern dictionaries consider the terms Father Christmas and Santa Claus to be synonymous.

==Early midwinter celebrations==

The custom of merrymaking and feasting at [[Christmastide]] first appears in the historical record during the [[England in the High Middle Ages|High Middle Ages]] (c 1100–1300).<ref name="Merry55">{{cite book | title=The Rise and Fall of Merry England | url=https://archive.org/details/risefallofmerrye0000hutt | url-access=registration | publisher=Oxford University Press | author=Hutton, Ronald | year=1994 | location=Oxford | pages=[https://archive.org/details/risefallofmerrye0000hutt/page/55 55]}}</ref> This almost certainly represented a continuation of pre-Christian midwinter celebrations in Britain of which—as the historian [[Ronald Hutton]] has pointed out—"we have no details at all".<ref name="Merry55"/> Personifications came later, and when they did they reflected the existing custom.

==15th century—the first English personifications of Christmas==

The first known English personification of Christmas was associated with merry-making, singing and drinking. [[Sir Christèmas|A carol]] attributed to Richard Smart, Rector of [[Plymtree]] in [[Devon]] from 1435 to 1477, has 'Sir Christemas' announcing the news of Christ's birth and encouraging his listeners to drink: "''Buvez bien par toute la compagnie'', / Make good cheer and be right merry, / And sing with us now joyfully: Nowell, nowell."<ref name="ODEF119-120">{{cite book | title=A Dictionary of English Folklore | url=https://archive.org/details/dictionaryenglis00simp | url-access=limited | publisher=Oxford University Press |author1=Simpson, Jacqueline  |author2=Roud, Steve | year=2000 | location=Oxford | pages=[https://archive.org/details/dictionaryenglis00simp/page/n131 119]–120 | isbn=0-19-969104-5}}</ref>

Many Christmas customs of the [[Late Middle Ages]] incorporated both sacred and secular themes.<ref name="Duffy14">{{cite book | title=The Stripping of the Altars | publisher=Yale University Press | author=Duffy, Eamon | year=1992 | location=New Haven and London | pages=[https://archive.org/details/strippingofaltar00duff/page/14 14] | isbn=0-300-06076-9 | url=https://archive.org/details/strippingofaltar00duff/page/14 }}</ref> In [[Norwich]] in January 1443, at a traditional battle between the [[Flesh (theology)|flesh]] and the spirit (represented by Christmas and Lent), John Gladman, crowned and disguised as 'King of Christmas', rode behind a pageant of the months "disguysed as the seson requird" on a horse decorated with tinfoil.<ref name="Duffy14"/>

==16th century—feasting, entertainment and music==

In most of England the archaic word '[[Yule]]' had been replaced by '[[Christmas]]' by the 11th century, but in some places 'Yule' survived as the normal dialect term.<ref name="ODEF402">{{cite book | title=A Dictionary of English Folklore | url=https://archive.org/details/dictionaryenglis00simp | url-access=limited | publisher=Oxford University Press |author1=Simpson, Jacqueline  |author2=Roud, Steve | year=2000 | location=Oxford | pages=[https://archive.org/details/dictionaryenglis00simp/page/n414 402] | isbn=0-19-969104-5}}</ref> The City of [[York]] maintained an annual [[Thomas the Apostle#Feast days|St Thomas's Day]] celebration of ''The Riding of Yule and his Wife'' which involved a figure representing Yule who carried bread and a leg of lamb. In 1572, the riding was suppressed on the orders of [[Edmund Grindal]], the [[Archbishop of York]] (term 1570–1576), who complained of the "undecent and uncomely disguising" which drew multitudes of people from divine service.<ref name="Duffy581">{{cite book | title=The Stripping of the Altars | publisher=Yale University Press | author=Duffy, Eamon | year=1992 | location=New Haven and London | pages=[https://archive.org/details/strippingofaltar00duff/page/581 581–582] | isbn=0-300-06076-9 | url=https://archive.org/details/strippingofaltar00duff/page/581 }}</ref>

Such personifications, illustrating the medieval fondness for pageantry and symbolism,<ref name="ODEF402"/> extended throughout the [[Tudor period|Tudor]] and [[Stuart period|Stuart]] periods with [[Lord of Misrule]] characters, sometimes called 'Captain Christmas',<ref name="EnglishYear385"/> 'Prince Christmas'<ref name="EnglishYear385"/> or 'The Christmas Lord', presiding over feasting and entertainment in grand houses, university colleges and [[Inns of Court]].<ref name="ODEF119-120"/>

In his allegorical play ''[[Summer's Last Will and Testament]]'',<ref name="SummerOnline">
{{cite book | url=http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10467 | title=Summer's Last Will and Testament | date=1600 | access-date=12 January 2016 | author=Nashe, Thomas | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160112225708/http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10467 | archive-date=12 January 2016 | url-status=live}}
</ref> written in about 1592, [[Thomas Nashe]] introduced for comic effect a miserly Christmas character who refuses to keep the feast. He is reminded by Summer of the traditional role that he ought to be playing: "Christmas, how chance thou com’st not as the rest, / Accompanied with some music, or some song? / A merry carol would have graced thee well; / Thy ancestors have used it heretofore."<ref name="Whitlock181">{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zhZ348IKVDcC&q=nashe+Summer%27s+Last+Will+and+Testament+christmas&pg=PA181 | title=The Renaissance in Europe: A Reader | publisher=Yale University Press | author=Whitlock, Keith | year=2000 | location=New Haven and London | pages=181 | isbn=0-300-082231}}</ref>

==17th century—religion and politics==

===Puritan criticisms===

Early 17th century writers used the techniques of personification and allegory as a means of defending Christmas from attacks by [[Puritans|radical Protestants]].<ref name="Huttonp117-118">{{cite book | title=The Stations of the Sun | publisher=Oxford University Press | author=Hutton, Ronald | year=1996 | location=Oxford & New York | pages=[https://archive.org/details/stationsofsunhis0000hutt/page/117 117]–118 | isbn=0-19-820570-8 | url=https://archive.org/details/stationsofsunhis0000hutt | url-access=limited }}</ref>

Responding to a perceived decline in the levels of Christmas hospitality provided by the gentry,<ref name="Merry212">{{cite book | title=The Rise and Fall of Merry England | url=https://archive.org/details/risefallofmerrye0000hutt | url-access=registration | publisher=Oxford University Press | author=Hutton, Ronald | year=1994 | location=Oxford | pages=[https://archive.org/details/risefallofmerrye0000hutt/page/212 212]}}</ref> [[Ben Jonson]] in ''[[Christmas, His Masque]]'' (1616) dressed his Old Christmas in out-of-date fashions:<ref>{{cite book|title=Costumes and Scripts in Elizabethan Theatres|url=https://archive.org/details/costumesscriptse00maci|url-access=limited|author=Macintyre, Jean |publisher=University of Alberta Press|year=1992|page=[https://archive.org/details/costumesscriptse00maci/page/n191 177]|isbn=9780888642264 }}</ref> "attir'd in round Hose, long Stockings, a close Doublet, a high crownd Hat with a Broach, a long thin beard, a Truncheon, little Ruffes, white shoes, his Scarffes, and Garters tyed crosse". Surrounded by guards, Christmas asserts his rightful place in the [[Protestantism|Protestant Church]] and protests against attempts to exclude him:<ref name="Austin11">
{{cite book | url=http://oll.libertyfund.org/pages/leveller-tracts-7#toc_lf1542-07_head_118 | title=The Celebration of Christmastide in England from the Civil Wars to its Victorian Transformation | publisher=University of Leeds (BA dissertation) | author=Austin, Charlotte | year=2006 | location=Leeds | pages=11 | access-date=14 January 2016 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160129002523/http://oll.libertyfund.org/pages/leveller-tracts-7#toc_lf1542-07_head_118 | archive-date=29 January 2016 | url-status=live}}
</ref> "Why Gentlemen, doe you know what you doe? ha! would you ha'kept me out? Christmas, old Christmas? Christmas of London, and Captaine Christmas? ... they would not let me in: I must come another time! a good jeast, as if I could come more then once a yeare; why, I am no dangerous person, and so I told my friends, o'the Guard. I am old Gregorie Christmas still, and though I come out of Popes-head-alley as good a Protestant, as any i'my Parish."<ref>
{{cite web |url=http://www.hymnsandcarolsofchristmas.com/Poetry/christmas_his_masque.htm |title=Christmas, His Masque – Ben Jonson |publisher=Hymnsandcarolsofchristmas.com |access-date=12 January 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141231202900/http://www.hymnsandcarolsofchristmas.com/Poetry/christmas_his_masque.htm |archive-date=31 December 2014 |url-status=live}}
</ref>

The stage directions to ''The Springs Glorie'', a 1638 [[Masque|court masque]] by [[Thomas Nabbes]], state, "Christmas is personated by an old reverend Gentleman in a furr'd gown and cappe &c."<ref name="Huttonp117-118"/> [[Shrovetide]] and [[Christmas]] dispute precedence, and Shrovetide issues a challenge: "I say Christmas you are past date, you are out of the Almanack. Resigne, resigne." To which Christmas responds: "Resigne to thee! I that am the King of good cheere and feasting, though I come but once a yeare to raigne over bak't, boyled, roast and plum-porridge, will have being in despight of thy lard-ship."<ref name="Bullen">{{cite book | url=https://archive.org/details/oldenglishplays00unkngoog | title=Old English Plays: The Works of Thomas Nabbes, volume the second | publisher=Wyman & Sons | editor=Bullen, AH | author=Nabbes, Thomas | year=1887 | location=London | pages=[https://archive.org/details/oldenglishplays00unkngoog/page/n239 228]–229}}</ref>

This sort of character was to feature repeatedly over the next 250 years in pictures, stage plays and folk dramas. Initially known as 'Sir Christmas' or 'Lord Christmas', he later became increasingly referred to as 'Father Christmas'.<ref name="Huttonp117-118"/>

===Puritan revolution—enter 'Father Christmas'===
 
The rise of [[puritanism]] led to accusations of [[Papist|popery]] in connection with pre-[[English Reformation|reformation]] Christmas traditions.<ref name="ODEF119-120"/> When the Puritans took control of government in the mid-1640s they made concerted efforts to abolish Christmas and to outlaw its traditional customs.<ref name="HistoryToday v35,12">
{{cite journal |url=http://www.historytoday.com/chris-durston/puritan-war-christmas |title=The Puritan War on Christmas |author=Durston, Chris |journal=History Today |date=December 1985 |volume=35 |issue=12 |access-date=14 January 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160115195307/http://www.historytoday.com/chris-durston/puritan-war-christmas |archive-date=15 January 2016 |url-status=live}}
</ref> For 15 years from around 1644, before and during the [[Interregnum (1649–1660)|Interregnum of 1649-1660]], the celebration of Christmas in England was forbidden.<ref name="HistoryToday v35,12"/> The suppression was given greater legal weight from June 1647 when [[Parliament of the United Kingdom|parliament]] passed an ''Ordinance for Abolishing of Festivals''<ref name="Ordinance1647">
{{cite book | url=http://www.british-history.ac.uk/no-series/acts-ordinances-interregnum/p954 | title=An Ordinance for Abolishing of Festivals | publisher=Official parliamentary record | date=8 June 1647 | access-date=16 January 2016 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160127020244/http://www.british-history.ac.uk/no-series/acts-ordinances-interregnum/p954 | archive-date=27 January 2016 | url-status=live}} Quoted in Acts and Ordinances of the Interregnum, 1642–1660, ed. CH Firth and RS Rait (London, 1911), p 954.
</ref> which formally abolished Christmas in its entirety, along with the other traditional church festivals of [[Easter]] and [[Whitsun]].<ref name="Merry212"/>

It was in this context that [[Cavalier|Royalist]] pamphleteers linked the old traditions of Christmas with the cause of King and Church, while radical puritans argued for the suppression of Christmas both in its religious and its secular aspects.<ref name="HistoryToday v10,12">
{{cite journal|url=http://www.historytoday.com/jar-pimlott/christmas-under-puritans|title=Christmas under the Puritans|journal=History Today|volume=10|issue=12|year=1960|author=Pimlott, JAR|access-date=23 December 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130128195917/http://www.historytoday.com/jar-pimlott/christmas-under-puritans|archive-date=28 January 2013|url-status=live}}
</ref> In the hands of Royalist [[Pamphlet wars|pamphlet writers]], Old Father Christmas served as the symbol and spokesman of 'the good old days' of feasting and good cheer,<ref name="EnglishYear385"/> and it became popular for Christmastide's defenders to present him as lamenting past times.<ref name="Austin7">
{{cite book | url=http://oll.libertyfund.org/pages/leveller-tracts-7#toc_lf1542-07_head_118 | title=The Celebration of Christmastide in England from the Civil Wars to its Victorian Transformation | publisher=University of Leeds (BA dissertation) | author=Austin, Charlotte | year=2006 | location=Leeds | pages=7 | access-date=14 January 2016 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160129002523/http://oll.libertyfund.org/pages/leveller-tracts-7#toc_lf1542-07_head_118 | archive-date=29 January 2016 | url-status=live}}
</ref>

''The Arraignment, Conviction and Imprisoning of Christmas'' (January 1646) describes a discussion between a [[town crier]] and a [[Cavalier|Royalist]] gentlewoman enquiring after Old Father Christmas who 'is gone from hence'.<ref name="HistoryToday v35,12"/> Its anonymous author, a [[Roundhead|parliamentarian]], presents Father Christmas in a negative light, concentrating on his allegedly [[Papist|popish]] attributes:  "For age, this hoarie headed man was of great yeares, and as white as snow; he entred the Romish Kallender time out of mind; [he] is old ...; he was full and fat as any dumb Docter of them all. He looked under the consecrated Laune sleeves as big as Bul-beefe ... but, since the catholike liquor is taken from him, he is much wasted, so that he hath looked very thin and ill of late ... But yet some other markes that you may know him by, is that the wanton Women dote after him; he helped them to so many new Gownes, Hatts, and Hankerches, and other fine knacks, of which he hath a pack on his back, in which is good store of all sorts, besides the fine knacks that he got out of their husbands' pockets for household provisions for him. He got Prentises, Servants, and Schollars many play dayes, and therefore was well beloved by them also, and made all merry with Bagpipes, Fiddles, and other musicks, Giggs, Dances, and Mummings."<ref name="Arraignment">
{{cite book | url=http://www.hymnsandcarolsofchristmas.com/Text/arraignment_conviction_and_i.htm | title=The Arraignment Conviction and Imprisonment of Christmas on S. Thomas Day Last | publisher=Simon Minc’d Pye, for Cissely Plum-Porridge | author=Anon | year=1645 | location=London, "at the signe of the Pack of Cards in Mustard-Alley, in Brawn Street" | access-date=15 January 2016 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151230012423/http://www.hymnsandcarolsofchristmas.com/Text/arraignment_conviction_and_i.htm | archive-date=30 December 2015 | url-status=live}} Reprinted in Ashton, John, [http://www.gutenberg.org/files/19979/19979-h/19979-h.htm#CHAPTER_IV ''A righte Merrie Christmasse!!! The Story of Christ-tide''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181008155033/http://www.gutenberg.org/files/19979/19979-h/19979-h.htm#CHAPTER_IV |date=8 October 2018 }}, Leadenhall Press Ltd, London, 1894, Chapter IV.
</ref>

[[File:Frontispiece to ''The Vindication of Christmas'' by John Taylor, 1652.png|thumb|alt=Woodcut|Father Christmas (centre) depicted in ''The Vindication of Christmas'', 1652]]
The character of 'Christmas' (also called 'father Christmas') speaks in a pamphlet of 1652, immediately after the [[English Civil War]], published anonymously by the satirical Royalist poet [[John Taylor (poet)|John Taylor]]: ''The Vindication of Christmas or, His Twelve Yeares' Observations upon the Times''. A frontispiece illustrates an old, bearded Christmas in a brimmed hat, a long open robe and undersleeves. Christmas laments the pitiful quandary he has fallen into since he came into "this headlesse countrey". "I was in good hope that so long a misery would have made them glad to bid a merry Christmas welcome. But welcome or not welcome, I am come...." He concludes with a verse: "Lets dance and sing, and make good chear, / For Christmas comes but once a year."<ref name="Vindication">
{{cite book | url=http://oll.libertyfund.org/pages/leveller-tracts-7#toc_lf1542-07_head_118 | title=The Vindication of Christmas or, His Twelve Yeares' Observations upon the Times | publisher=G Horton | author=Taylor, John (published anonymously) | year=1652 | location=London | access-date=14 January 2016 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160129002523/http://oll.libertyfund.org/pages/leveller-tracts-7#toc_lf1542-07_head_118 | archive-date=29 January 2016 | url-status=live}} (Printed date 1653)
</ref>

[[File:FatherChristmastrial.jpg|left|upright|thumb|alt=Engraving|Father Christmas, as illustrated in Josiah King's two pamphlets of 1658 (''The Examination and Tryall of Old Father Christmas'') during the Puritan ban on Christmas, and 1678 when it has been restored as a holy day]]
In 1658 Josiah King published ''The Examination and Tryall of Old Father Christmas'' (the earliest citation for the specific term 'Father Christmas' recognised by the ''[[Oxford English Dictionary]]'').<ref name="OED">{{Cite OED | Father Christmas | date = March 2016 | access-date= 25 November 2020 }}</ref> King portrays Father Christmas as a white-haired old man who is on trial for his life based on evidence laid against him by the [[Commonwealth of England|Commonwealth]]. Father Christmas's counsel mounts the defence: "Me thinks my Lord, the very Clouds blush, to see this old Gentleman thus egregiously abused. if at any time any have abused themselves by immoderate eating, and drinking or otherwise spoil the creatures, it is none of this old mans fault; neither ought he to suffer for it; for example the Sun and the Moon are by the heathens worship’d are they therefore bad because idolized? so if any abuse this old man, they are bad for abusing him, not he bad, for being abused." The jury acquits.<ref name="TCP">
{{cite web | url=http://www.textcreationpartnership.org/2011/12/23/giving-christmas-his-due/ | title=Giving Christmas his Due | date=23 December 2011 | access-date=15 January 2016 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160126100640/http://www.textcreationpartnership.org/2011/12/23/giving-christmas-his-due/ | archive-date=26 January 2016 | url-status=live}}
</ref><ref name="Tryall1658">
{{cite book | url=http://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A47419.0001.001/1:7?rgn=div1;view=fulltext | title=The Examination and Tryall of Old Father Christmas | publisher=Thomas Johnson | author=King, Josiah | year=1658 | location=London | access-date=15 January 2016 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160127024549/http://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A47419.0001.001/1:7?rgn=div1;view=fulltext | archive-date=27 January 2016 | url-status=live}}
</ref>

===Restoration===

Following the [[Restoration (England)|Restoration]] in 1660, most traditional Christmas celebrations were revived, although as these were no longer contentious the historic documentary sources become fewer.<ref name="ODEF62">{{cite book | title=A Dictionary of English Folklore | url=https://archive.org/details/dictionaryenglis00simp | url-access=limited | publisher=Oxford University Press |author1=Simpson, Jacqueline  |author2=Roud, Steve | year=2000 | location=Oxford | pages=[https://archive.org/details/dictionaryenglis00simp/page/n74 62] | isbn=0-19-969104-5}}</ref>

In 1678 Josiah King reprinted his 1658 pamphlet with additional material. In this version, the restored Father Christmas is looking better: "[he] look't so smug and pleasant, his cherry cheeks appeared through his thin milk white locks, like [b]lushing Roses vail'd with snow white Tiffany ... the true Emblem of Joy and Innocence."<ref name="Tryal">
{{cite book | url=http://www.hymnsandcarolsofchristmas.com/Poetry/examination__and__tryal_of.htm | title=The Examination and Tryal of Old Father Christmas, together with his clearing by the Jury, at the Assizes held at the town of Difference, in the county of Discontent. | publisher=H Brome, T Basset and J Wright | author=King, Josiah | year=1678 | location=London | access-date=22 December 2012 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130122222710/http://www.hymnsandcarolsofchristmas.com/Poetry/examination__and__tryal_of.htm | archive-date=22 January 2013 | url-status=live}} The online transcript is from a later reprinting of 1686.
</ref>

''Old Christmass Returnd'', a ballad collected by [[Samuel Pepys]], celebrated the revival of festivities in the latter part of the century: "Old Christmass is come for to keep open house / He scorns to be guilty of starving a mouse, / Then come boyes and welcome, for dyet the chief / Plumb pudding, Goose, Capon, minc't pies & Roast beef".<ref name="OCR">
{{Cite book |url=http://ebba.english.ucsb.edu/ballad/20222/image |title=Old Christmass Returnd, / Or, Hospitality REVIVED |publisher=Printed for P. Brooksby |year=1672–1696 |ref=EBBA ID: 20222; Magdalene College - Pepys; Pepys Ballads 1.474-475 |access-date=31 December 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171027232854/http://ebba.english.ucsb.edu/ballad/20222/image |archive-date=27 October 2017 |url-status=live}} Transcription also at [https://www.hymnsandcarolsofchristmas.com/Hymns_and_Carols/old_christmass_returnd__pepys.htm ''Hymns and Carols of Christmas''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160523195024/http://www.hymnsandcarolsofchristmas.com/Hymns_and_Carols/old_christmass_returnd__pepys.htm |date=23 May 2016 }}
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== 18th century—a low profile ==

As interest in Christmas customs waned, Father Christmas's profile declined.<ref name="EnglishYear385"/> He still continued to be regarded as Christmas's presiding spirit, although his occasional earlier associations with the [[Lord of Misrule]] died out with the disappearance of the Lord of Misrule himself.<ref name="EnglishYear385"/> The historian [[Ronald Hutton]] notes, "after a taste of genuine misrule during the [[Interregnum (1649–1660)|Interregnum]] nobody in the ruling elite seems to have had any stomach for simulating it."<ref name="Merry242">{{cite book | title=The Rise and Fall of Merry England | url=https://archive.org/details/risefallofmerrye0000hutt | url-access=registration | publisher=Oxford University Press | author=Hutton, Ronald | year=1994 | location=Oxford | pages=[https://archive.org/details/risefallofmerrye0000hutt/page/242 242–243]}}</ref> Hutton also found "patterns of entertainment at late [[Stuart period|Stuart]] Christmases are remarkably timeless [and] nothing very much seems to have altered during the next century either."<ref name="Merry242"/> The diaries of 18th and early 19th century clergy take little note of any Christmas traditions.<ref name="ODEF62"/>

In ''The Country Squire'', a play of 1732, Old Christmas is depicted as someone who is rarely-found: a generous squire. The character Scabbard remarks, "Men are grown so ... stingy, now-a-days, that there is scarce One, in ten Parishes, makes any House-keeping. ... Squire Christmas ... keeps a good House, or else I do not know of One besides." When invited to spend Christmas with the squire, he comments "I will ... else I shall forget Christmas, for aught I see."<ref name="Austin34">
{{cite book | url=http://oll.libertyfund.org/pages/leveller-tracts-7#toc_lf1542-07_head_118 | title=The Celebration of Christmastide in England from the Civil Wars to its Victorian Transformation | publisher=University of Leeds (BA dissertation) | author=Austin, Charlotte | year=2006 | location=Leeds | pages=34 | access-date=14 January 2016 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160129002523/http://oll.libertyfund.org/pages/leveller-tracts-7#toc_lf1542-07_head_118 | archive-date=29 January 2016 | url-status=live}}
</ref> Similar opinions were expressed in ''Round About Our Coal Fire ... with some curious Memories of Old Father Christmas; Shewing what Hospitality was in former Times, and how little there remains of it at present'' (1734, reprinted with Father Christmas subtitle 1796).<ref name=CoalFire>{{cite book | title=Round about our Coal Fire, or, Christmas Entertainments | year=1734 | author=Merryman, Dick| publisher=Roberts, J | location=London }} [[:File:Round about our Coal Fire, or, Christmas Entertainments, 4th edn, 1734.pdf|4th edn reprint of 1796 on Commons]]</ref>

[[David Garrick]]'s popular 1774 [[Theatre Royal, Drury Lane|Drury Lane]] production of ''A Christmas Tale'' included a personified Christmas character who announced "Behold a personage well known to fame; / Once lov'd and honour'd – Christmas is my name! /.../ I, English hearts rejoic'd in days of yore; / for new strange modes, imported by the score, / You will not sure turn Christmas out of door!"<ref name="EnglishmansChristmas63">{{cite book | title=An Englishman's Christmas: A Social History | publisher=The Harvester Press | author=Pimlott, JAR | year=1978 | location=Hassocks, Suffolk | pages=63 | isbn=0-391-00900-1}}</ref><ref name="ChristmasTale1774">
{{cite book | url=http://ota.ox.ac.uk/text/4046.html | title=A new dramatic entertainment, called a Christmas Tale: In five parts. | publisher=T Becket | author=Garrick, David | year=1774 | location=The corner of the Adelphi, in the Strand [London] | access-date=9 February 2016 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160216001038/http://ota.ox.ac.uk/text/4046.html | archive-date=16 February 2016 | url-status=live}}
</ref>

===Early records of folk plays===

By the late 18th century Father Christmas had become a stock character in the Christmas folk plays later known as [[mummers play]]s. During the following century they became probably the most widespread of all calendar customs.<ref name="MillingtonTDF6">
{{cite journal | url=http://www.folkplay.info/Forum/TD_Forum_6_Sandys.htm | title=Who is the Guy on the Left? | author=Millington, Peter | journal=Traditional Drama Forum | year=2002 | issue=6 | access-date=16 December 2015 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170924215626/http://www.folkplay.info/Forum/TD_Forum_6_Sandys.htm | archive-date=24 September 2017 | url-status=live}} Web page dated Jan 2003
</ref> Hundreds of villages had their own mummers who performed traditional plays around the neighbourhood, especially at the big houses.<ref name="EnglishYear393">{{cite book | title=The English Year | publisher=Penguin Books | author=Roud, Steve | year=2006 | location=London | pages=393 | isbn=978-0-140-51554-1}}</ref> Father Christmas appears as a character in plays of the Southern England type,<ref name="MillingtonPhD">
{{cite thesis | url=http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/13/ | title=The Origins and Development of English Folk Plays | publisher=Unpublished | author=Millington, Peter | year=2002 | location=University of Sheffield | access-date=19 January 2016 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160130232445/http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/13/ | archive-date=30 January 2016 | url-status=live| type=phd }}
</ref><ref name="MillingtonConf106">{{cite conference | url=http://www.folkplay.info/Confs/Millington2002.pdf | title=Textual Analysis of English Quack Doctor Plays: Some New Discoveries | access-date=19 January 2016 | author=Millington, Peter | book-title=Folk Drama Studies Today | year=2002 | conference=International Traditional Drama Conference | pages=106 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130203064236/http://www.folkplay.info/Confs/Millington2002.pdf | archive-date=3 February 2013 | url-status=dead}}</ref> being mostly confined to plays from the south and west of England and Wales.<ref name="MillingtonWeb">
{{cite web | url=http://petemillington.uk/fatherxmas/ | title=Father Christmas in English Folk Plays | access-date=13 March 2018 | author=Millington, Peter | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161029211607/http://petemillington.uk/fatherxmas/ | archive-date=29 October 2016 | url-status=live| date=December 2006 }}
</ref> His ritual opening speech is characterised by variants of a couplet closely reminiscent of [[John Taylor (poet)|John Taylor]]'s "But welcome or not welcome, I am come..." from 1652.

The oldest extant speech<ref name="MillingtonWeb"/><ref name="MillingtonTruro">{{cite journal | jstor=30035067 | title=The Truro Cordwainers' Play: A 'New' Eighteenth-Century Christmas Play | author=Millington, Peter | journal=Folklore | date=April 2003 | volume=114 | issue=1 | pages=53–73 | doi=10.1080/0015587032000059870 | s2cid=160553381 | url=http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/3297/1/Truro-Cordwainers-Play.pdf | access-date=8 November 2019 | archive-date=19 July 2018 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180719181035/http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/3297/1/Truro-Cordwainers-Play.pdf | url-status=dead }} The article is also available at eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/3297/1/Truro-Cordwainers-Play.pdf.</ref> is from [[Truro, Cornwall]] in the late 1780s:
:{|
| hare comes i ould father Christmas welcom or welcom not&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<br/>i hope ould father Christmas will never be forgot&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<br/>ould father Christmas a pair but woance a yare&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<br/>he lucks like an ould man of 4 score yare<ref name="TruroPlay">{{cite web | url=http://www.folkplay.info/Texts/78sw84em.htm | title=Truro [Formerly Mylor]: "A Play for Christmas", 1780s | editor-last=Millington | editor-first=Peter | access-date=26 January 2016 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303182402/http://www.folkplay.info/Texts/78sw84em.htm | archive-date=3 March 2016 | url-status=dead}}</ref>

| ''Here comes I, old Father Christmas, welcome or welcome not,<br/>I hope old Father Christmas will never be forgot.<br/>Old Father Christmas appear[s] but once a year,<br/>He looks like an old man of fourscore year [80]''.
|}

== 19th century—revival ==

During the [[Victorian era|Victorian period]], Christmas customs enjoyed a significant revival, including the figure of Father Christmas himself as the emblem of 'good cheer'. His physical appearance at this time became more variable, and he was by no means always portrayed as the old and bearded figure imagined by 17th century writers.<ref name="ODEF119-120"/>

==='Merry England' view of Christmas===
In his 1808 poem ''[[Marmion (poem)|Marmion]]'', [[Walter Scott]] wrote:
:"England was merry England, when / Old Christmas brought his sports again.
:'Twas Christmas broach'd the mightiest ale; / 'Twas Christmas told the merriest tale;
:A Christmas gambol oft could cheer / The poor man's heart through half the year."<ref name="Marmion">{{cite book | url=https://archive.org/stream/marmion05077gut/marmn10a.txt | title=Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field | author=Scott, Walter | year=1808}}</ref>
Scott's phrase [[Merry England]] has been adopted by historians to describe the romantic notion that there was a [[Golden Age]] of the English past, allegedly since lost, that was characterised by universal hospitality and charity. The notion had a profound influence on the way that popular customs were seen, and most of the 19th century writers who bemoaned the state of contemporary Christmases were, at least to some extent, yearning for the mythical Merry England version.<ref name="EnglishYear372&382">{{cite book | title=The English Year | publisher=Penguin Books | author=Roud, Steve | year=2006 | location=London | pages=372, 382 | isbn=978-0-140-51554-1}}</ref>

[[File:Old Christmas riding a goat, by Robert Seymour, 1836.jpg|thumb|175px|left|alt=Engraving of Father Christmas riding a Yule Goat|A [[Merry England]] vision of Old Christmas 1836]]
[[Thomas Kibble Hervey|Thomas Hervey]]'s ''The Book of Christmas'' (1836), illustrated by [[Robert Seymour (illustrator)|Robert Seymour]], exemplifies this view.<ref name="MummersMumming">
{{cite web | url=http://streetsofsalem.com/2014/12/24/ | title=Daily Archives: December 24, 2014 - Mummers Mumming | publisher=streetsofsalem | date=24 December 2014 | access-date=20 January 2016 | author=Daseger | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160201123722/http://streetsofsalem.com/2014/12/24/ | archive-date=1 February 2016 | url-status=live}}
</ref> In Hervey's personification of the lost charitable festival, "Old Father Christmas, at the head of his numerous and uproarious family, might ride his goat through the streets of the city and the lanes of the village, but he dismounted to sit for some few moments by each man's hearth; while some one or another of his merry sons would break away, to visit the remote farm-houses or show their laughing faces at many a poor man's door." Seymour's illustration shows Old Christmas dressed in a fur gown, crowned with a holly wreath, and riding a [[Yule Goat|yule goat]].<ref name="Hervey42,285">
{{cite book | url=https://archive.org/details/bookofchristmas00herviala | title=The Book of Christmas: descriptive of the customs, ceremonies, traditions, superstitions, fun, feeling, and festivities of the Christmas Season | author=Hervey, Thomas Kibble | year=1836 | pages=[https://archive.org/details/bookofchristmas00herviala/page/42 42], 285 }}. The online version listed is the 1888 American printing. Higher-resolution copies of the illustrations [https://standrewsrarebooks.wordpress.com/2012/12/23/52-weeks-of-inspiring-illustrations-week-27-robert-seymours-book-of-christmas-illustrations-1836/ can also be found online] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160214105050/https://standrewsrarebooks.wordpress.com/2012/12/23/52-weeks-of-inspiring-illustrations-week-27-robert-seymours-book-of-christmas-illustrations-1836/ |date=14 February 2016 }}.
</ref>

[[File:Christmas and his children, by Robert Seymour, 1836.jpg|175px|thumb|alt=Engraving|Christmas with his children 1836]]
In an extended allegory, Hervey imagines his contemporary Old Father Christmas as a white-bearded [[Magician (fantasy)|magician]] dressed in a long robe and crowned with holly. His children are identified as Roast Beef (Sir Loin) and his faithful squire or bottle-holder Plum Pudding; the slender figure of Wassail with her fount of perpetual youth; a 'tricksy spirit' who bears the bowl and is on the best of terms with the Turkey; Mumming; Misrule, with a feather in his cap; the Lord of [[Twelfth Night (holiday)|Twelfth Night]] under a state-canopy of cake and wearing his ancient crown; Saint Distaff looking like an old maid ("she used to be a sad romp; but her merriest days we fear are over"); Carol singing; the Waits; and the twin-faced [[Janus]].<ref name="Hervey114-118">{{cite book | url=https://archive.org/details/bookofchristmas00herviala | title=The Book of Christmas: descriptive of the customs, ceremonies, traditions, superstitions, fun, feeling, and festivities of the Christmas Season | author=Hervey, Thomas Kibble | year=1836 | pages=[https://archive.org/details/bookofchristmas00herviala/page/114 114]–118}}.</ref>

Hervey ends by lamenting the lost "uproarious merriment" of Christmas, and calls on his readers "who know anything of the 'old, old, very old, gray-bearded gentleman' or his family to aid us in our search after them; and with their good help we will endeavor to restore them to some portion of their ancient honors in England".<ref name="Hervey133">{{cite book | url=https://archive.org/details/bookofchristmas00herviala | title=The Book of Christmas: descriptive of the customs, ceremonies, traditions, superstitions, fun, feeling, and festivities of the Christmas Season | author=Hervey, Thomas Kibble | year=1836 | pages=[https://archive.org/details/bookofchristmas00herviala/page/133 133]}}</ref>

Father Christmas or Old Christmas, represented as a jolly-faced bearded man often surrounded by plentiful food and drink, started to appear regularly in illustrated magazines of the 1840s.<ref name="EnglishYear385"/> He was dressed in a variety of costumes and usually had holly on his head,<ref name="EnglishYear385"/> as in these illustrations from the ''[[Illustrated London News]]'':

<gallery mode="packed" heights="175px" caption="Illustrated London News, 1840s">
File:Old Christmas, Illustrated London News 24 Dec 1842.jpg|alt=Engraving of Old Christmas 1842|Old Christmas 1842
File:The Music in the Hall, Illustrated London News, 23 Dec 1843.jpg|alt=Engraving of Old Christmas or Father Christmas 1843|Old Christmas / Father Christmas 1843
File:Merry Christmas, Illustrated London News, 25 December 1847.jpg|alt=Engraving of Old Christmas 1847|Old Christmas 1847

</gallery>

[[File:Scrooges third visitor-John Leech,1843 edit.jpg|thumb|175px|left|alt=Coloured engraving|'[[Ghost of Christmas Present]]' in [[Charles Dickens]]'s ''[[A Christmas Carol]] 1843''.]]
[[Charles Dickens]]'s 1843 novel ''[[A Christmas Carol]]'' was highly influential, and has been credited both with reviving interest in Christmas in England and with shaping the themes attached to it.<ref name="EncChristmas44">{{cite book | title=The World Encyclopedia of Christmas | publisher=McClelland & Stewart Ltd | author=Bowler, Gerry | year=2000 | location=Toronto | pages=[https://archive.org/details/worldencyclopedi00gerr/page/44 44] | isbn=0-7710-1531-3 | url=https://archive.org/details/worldencyclopedi00gerr/page/44 }}</ref> A famous image from the novel is [[John Leech (caricaturist)|John Leech's]] illustration of the '[[Ghost of Christmas Present]]'.<ref name="Carol">{{cite book | url=https://archive.org/stream/christmascarolin20dick#page/n17/mode/2up | title=A Christmas Carol in Prose, Being a Ghost-Story of Christmas | publisher=[[Chapman & Hall]] | author=Dickens, Charles | date=19 December 1843 | location=London | pages=79}}</ref> Although not explicitly named Father Christmas, the character wears a holly [[wreath]], is shown sitting among food, drink and [[Wassail|wassail bowl]], and is dressed in the traditional loose furred gown—but in green rather than the red that later become ubiquitous.<ref name="ODEF119-120"/>

===Later 19th century mumming===

Old Father Christmas continued to make his annual appearance in Christmas [[mummers play|folk plays]] throughout the 19th century, his appearance varying considerably according to local custom. Sometimes, as in Hervey's book of 1836,<ref name="Hervey65">{{cite book | url=https://archive.org/details/bookofchristmas00herviala | title=The Book of Christmas: descriptive of the customs, ceremonies, traditions, superstitions, fun, feeling, and festivities of the Christmas Season | author=Hervey, Thomas Kibble | year=1836 | pages=[https://archive.org/details/bookofchristmas00herviala/page/65 65]}}</ref> he was portrayed (below left) as a hunchback.<ref name="TimesDec1956">{{cite news | url=https://login.thetimes.com/oidc/rp/login/thetimescom?gotoUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thetimes.com%2Farchive%2Farticle%2F1956-12-22%2F7%2F15.html | title=Gifts And Stockings - The Strange Case Of Father Christmas | date=22 December 1956 | access-date=28 January 2016 | work=[[The Times]] | pages=7}}</ref><ref name="EnglishmansChristmas112-113">{{cite book | title=An Englishman's Christmas: A Social History | publisher=The Harvester Press | author=Pimlott, JAR | year=1978 | location=Hassocks, Suffolk | pages=112–113 | isbn=0-391-00900-1}}</ref>

One unusual portrayal (below centre) was described several times by [[William Sandys (antiquarian)|William Sandys]] between 1830 and 1852, all in essentially the same terms:<ref name="MillingtonTDF6"/> "Father Christmas is represented as a grotesque old man, with a large mask and comic wig, and a huge club in his hand."<ref name="Sandys">{{cite book | url=https://archive.org/details/christmastideits00sandrich | title=Christmastide, its History, Festivities and Carols | publisher=John Russell Smith | author=Sandys, William | year=1852 | location=London | pages=[https://archive.org/details/christmastideits00sandrich/page/152 152]}}</ref> This representation is considered by the folklore scholar Peter Millington to be the result of the southern Father Christmas replacing the northern [[Beelzebub]] character in a hybrid play.<ref name="MillingtonTDF6"/><ref name="MillingtonConf107">{{cite conference | url=http://www.folkplay.info/Confs/Millington2002.pdf | title=Textual Analysis of English Quack Doctor Plays: Some New Discoveries | access-date=19 January 2016 | author=Millington, Peter | book-title=Folk Drama Studies Today | year=2002 | conference=International Traditional Drama Conference | pages=107 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130203064236/http://www.folkplay.info/Confs/Millington2002.pdf | archive-date=3 February 2013 | url-status=dead}}</ref> A spectator to a [[Worcestershire]] version of the ''St George'' play in 1856 noted, "Beelzebub was identical with Old Father Christmas."<ref name="N&Q271">{{cite journal | url=https://archive.org/details/s2notesqueries11londuoft | title=Modern Mumming | author=Bede, Cuthbert | journal=Notes & Queries | date=6 April 1861 | volume=11 | issue=Second series | pages=[https://archive.org/details/s2notesqueries11londuoft/page/271 271]–272}} ('Cuthbert Bede' was a pseudonym used by the novelist [[Edward Bradley (writer)|Edward Bradley]]).</ref>

A mummers play mentioned in ''The Book of Days'' (1864) opened with "Old Father Christmas, bearing, as emblematic devices, the holly bough, wassail-bowl, &c".<ref name="Days1864">{{cite book | url=https://archive.org/details/1888bookofdaysmi02chamuoft | title=The Book of Days. A Miscellany of Popular Antiquities in Connection with the Calendar. Volume II | publisher=W & R Chambers | author=Chambers, Robert | author-link=The Mummers | year=1864 | location=London | pages=[https://archive.org/details/1888bookofdaysmi02chamuoft/page/740 740]}} The online version is the 1888 reprint.</ref> A corresponding illustration (below right) shows the character wearing not only a holly wreath but also a gown with a hood.

<gallery mode="packed" heights="175px" caption="Old Father Christmas in folk plays">
File:Mummers, by Robert Seymour, 1836.jpg|alt=Engraving showing a hunchback Old Father Christmas in an 1836 mummers play|A hunchback Old Father Christmas in an 1836 [[mummers play|play]] with long robe, holly wreath and staff.
File:Sandys 1852 - Modern Christmas Plays, ChapterVIII.jpg|alt=Engraving of an 1852 play with grotesque Old Father Christmas character|An 1852 [[mummers play|play]]. The Old Father Christmas character is on the far left.
File:A party of mummers, Robert Chambers, The Book of Days, vol II, 1864.jpg|alt=Engraving of a party of mummers 1864|A party of mummers 1864
</gallery>

In a [[Hampshire]] folk play of 1860 Father Christmas is portrayed as a disabled soldier: "[he] wore breeches and stockings, carried a begging-box, and conveyed himself upon two sticks; his arms were striped with chevrons like a noncommissioned officer."<ref name="N&Q1862">{{cite journal | url=https://archive.org/stream/notesqueries3111unse/notesqueries3111unse_djvu.txt | title=Hampshire Mummers | author=Walcott, Mackenzie EC| journal=Notes & Queries | year=1862 | volume=1 | issue=Third series}}</ref>

In the latter part of the 19th century and the early years of the next the folk play tradition in England rapidly faded,<ref name="EnglishmansChristmas136">{{cite book | title=An Englishman's Christmas: A Social History | publisher=The Harvester Press | author=Pimlott, JAR | year=1978 | location=Hassocks, Suffolk | pages=136 | isbn=0-391-00900-1}}</ref> and the plays almost died out after the [[World War I|First World War]]<ref name="EnglishYear396">{{cite book | title=The English Year | publisher=Penguin Books | author=Roud, Steve | year=2006 | location=London | pages=396 | isbn=978-0-140-51554-1}}</ref> taking their ability to influence the character of Father Christmas with them.

===Father Christmas as gift-giver===

In pre-Victorian personifications, Father Christmas had been concerned essentially with adult feasting and games. He had no particular connection with children, nor with the giving of presents.<ref name="EnglishYear385"/><ref name="Huttonp117-118"/> But as Victorian Christmases developed into family festivals centred mainly on children,<ref name="EnglishmansChristmas85">{{cite book | title=An Englishman's Christmas: A Social History | publisher=The Harvester Press | author=Pimlott, JAR | year=1978 | location=Hassocks, Suffolk | pages=85 | isbn=0-391-00900-1}}</ref> Father Christmas started to be associated with the giving of gifts.

The [[Cornwall|Cornish]] [[Quaker]] diarist Barclay Fox relates a family party given on 26 December 1842 that featured "the venerable effigies of Father Christmas with scarlet coat & cocked hat, stuck all over with presents for the guests, by his side the old year, a most dismal & haggard old beldame in a night cap and spectacles, then 1843 [the new year], a promising baby asleep in a cradle".<ref name="Fox297">{{cite book | title=Barclay Fox's Journal 1832 - 1854 | publisher=Cornwall Editions Limited | author=Fox, Berkley | editor=Brett, RL | year=2008 | page = 297 | isbn=978-1904880318}} Some of the entries were first published under the title ''Barclay Fox's Journal'', edited by RL Brett, Bell and Hyman, London 1979.</ref>

In Britain, the first evidence of a child writing letters to Father Christmas requesting gift has been found in 1895.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/12/14/first-letter-father-christmas-discovered-girl-requesting-paints/ |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220112/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/12/14/first-letter-father-christmas-discovered-girl-requesting-paints/ |archive-date=12 January 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |title=First letter to Father Christmas discovered from girl requesting paints in 1895 |first=Dalya |last=Alberge |date=14 December 2019 |work=The Telegraph}}{{cbignore}}</ref>

===Santa Claus crosses the Atlantic===

The figure of [[Santa Claus]] had originated in the US, drawing at least partly upon Dutch [[Saint Nicholas|St Nicolas]] traditions.<ref name="Huttonp117-118"/> A New York publication of 1821, ''A New-Year’s Present'', contained an illustrated poem ''[[Old Santeclaus with Much Delight]]'' in which a Santa Claus figure on a reindeer sleigh brings presents for good children and a "long, black birchen rod" for use on the bad ones.<ref name="ChildrensFriend">{{cite book | url=http://brbl-dl.library.yale.edu/vufind/Record/3437144?image_id=1061153 | title=The Children's friend. Number III. : A New-Year's present, to the little ones from five to twelve. Part III. | publisher=Gilley, William B | year=1821 | location=New York | access-date=28 January 2016 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160206014455/http://brbl-dl.library.yale.edu/vufind/Record/3437144?image_id=1061153 | archive-date=6 February 2016 | url-status=live}}</ref> In 1823 came the famous poem ''[[A Visit from St. Nicholas]]'', usually attributed to the New York writer [[Clement Clarke Moore]], which developed the character further. Moore's poem became immensely popular<ref name="EnglishYear385"/> and Santa Claus customs, initially localized in the Dutch American areas, were becoming general in the United States by the middle of the century.<ref name="TimesDec1956"/>

[[File:Santa Claus. Howitt's Journal of Literature and Popular Progress, 1848.jpg|thumb|right|alt=Engraving|Santa Claus, as presented in ''Howitt's Journal of Literature and Popular Progress'', London 1848]]
The January 1848 edition of ''Howitt's Journal of Literature and Popular Progress'', published in London, carried an illustrated article entitled "New Year's Eve in Different Nations". This noted that one of the chief features of the American New Year's Eve was a custom carried over from the Dutch, namely the arrival of Santa Claus with gifts for the children. Santa Claus is "no other than the Pelz Nickel of Germany ... the good Saint Nicholas of Russia ... He arrives in Germany about a fortnight before Christmas, but as may be supposed from all the visits he has to pay there, and the length of his voyage, he does not arrive in America, until this eve."<ref name="HowittsJournal">{{cite journal | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=168CAAAAIAAJ&q=santa+claus | title=New Year's Eve in Different Nations | author=Howitt, Mary Botham | journal=Howitt's Journal of Literature and Popular Progress | date=1 January 1848 | volume=III | issue=53 | pages=1–3}}</ref>

In 1851 advertisements began appearing in Liverpool newspapers for a new transatlantic passenger service to and from New York aboard the Eagle Line's ship ''Santa Claus'',<ref name="LiverpoolMercury">{{cite news | url=http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000081/18510425/017/0004 | title=Liverpool Mercury | work=Notices for Emigrants for 1851. Michell's American Passenger Office. For New York. "Eagle Line" | date=25 April 1851 | access-date=31 January 2016 | location=Liverpool | pages=4}}</ref> and returning visitors and emigrants to the British Isles on this and other vessels will have been familiar with the American figure.<ref name="TimesDec1956"/> There were some early adoptions in Britain. A Scottish reference has Santa Claus leaving presents on [[New Year's Eve]] 1852, with children "hanging their stockings up on each side of the fire-place, in their sleeping apartments, at night, and waiting patiently till morning, to see what Santa Claus puts into them during their slumbers".<ref name="Johno'Groat">{{cite news | url=http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000459/18520109/022/0003 | title=New Year's Day | work=John o' Groat Journal | date=9 January 1852 | access-date=28 January 2016 | location=Caithness, Scotland | pages=3}}</ref> In Ireland in 1853, on the other hand, presents were being left on [[Christmas Eve]] according to a character in a newspaper short story who says "...&nbsp;tomorrow will be Christmas. What will Santa Claus bring us?"<ref name="ArmaghGuardian">{{cite news | url=http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001372/18531125/049/0007 | title=Works of Love | work=Armagh Guardian| date=25 November 1853| access-date=28 January 2016 | location= Armagh, Northern Ireland | pages=7}}</ref> A poem published in Belfast in 1858 includes the lines "The children sleep; they dream of him, the fairy, / Kind Santa Claus, who with a right good will / Comes down the chimney with a footstep airy ..."<ref name="BelfastNL1858">{{cite news | url=http://find.galegroup.com/bncn/infomark.do?&enlarge=&source=gale&prodId=BNCN&userGroupName=herlib&tabID=T012&docPage=&docId=Y3201991268&type=multipage&contentSet=LTO&version=1.0 | title=The Little Stockings | work=The Belfast News-Letter| date=2 February 1858| access-date=14 February 2016 | location= Belfast}}</ref>

''A Visit from St. Nicholas'' was published in England in December 1853 in ''[[Notes and Queries]]''. An explanatory note states that the [[St. Nicholas|St Nicholas]] figure is known as Santa Claus in [[New York State]] and as [[Christkind|Krishkinkle]] in [[Pennsylvania]].<ref name="N&Q615">
{{cite journal | url=https://archive.org/details/s2notesqueries11londuoft | title=Pennsylvanian Folk Lore: Christmas | author=Uneda | journal=Notes & Queries | date=24 December 1853 | volume=8 | pages=615 }}A further online copy can be found [http://www.merrycoz.org/moore/1853Notes.xhtml here] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160307190314/http://www.merrycoz.org/moore/1853Notes.xhtml |date=7 March 2016 }}
</ref>

1854 marked the first English publication of ''Carl Krinkin; or, The Christmas Stocking'' by the popular American author [[Susan Warner]].<ref name="EnglishYear385"/> The novel was published three times in London in 1854–5, and there were several later editions.<ref name="ArmstrongPhD58-59">
{{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=58–59 | 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> Characters in the book include both Santa Claus (complete with sleigh, stocking and chimney),<ref name="ArmstrongPhD58-59"/> leaving presents on Christmas Eve and—separately—Old Father Christmas. The Stocking of the title tells of how in England, "a great many years ago", it saw Father Christmas enter with his traditional refrain "Oh! here come I, old father Christmas, welcome or not ..."  He wore a crown of yew and ivy, and he carried a long staff topped with holly-berries. His dress "was a long brown robe which fell down about his feet, and on it were sewed little spots of white cloth to represent snow".<ref name="CarlKrinken">{{cite book | url=https://archive.org/details/carlkrinkenorchr00warniala | title=Carl Krinkin; or, The Christmas Stocking | publisher=Frederick Warne and Co. | author=Warner, Susan | year=1854 | location=London and New York}}</ref>

===Merger with Santa Claus===

As the US-inspired customs became popular in England, Father Christmas started to take on Santa Claus's attributes.<ref name="EnglishYear385"/> His costume became more standardised, and although depictions often still showed him carrying holly, the holly crown became rarer and was often replaced with a hood.<ref name="EnglishYear385"/><ref name="Huttonp117-118"/> It still remained common, though, for Father Christmas and Santa Claus to be distinguished, and as late as the 1890s there were still examples of the old-style Father Christmas appearing without any of the new American features.<ref name="EnglishmansChristmas117">{{cite book | title=An Englishman's Christmas: A Social History | publisher=The Harvester Press | author=Pimlott, JAR | year=1978 | location=Hassocks, Suffolk | pages=117 | isbn=0-391-00900-1}}</ref>

====Appearances in public====

The blurring of public roles occurred quite rapidly. In an 1854 newspaper description of the public [[Boxing Day]] festivities in [[Luton]], [[Bedfordshire]], a gift-giving Father Christmas/Santa Claus figure was already being described as 'familiar': "On the right-hand side was Father Christmas's bower, formed of evergreens, and in front was the proverbial [[Yule log]], glistening in the snow ... He wore a great furry white coat and cap, and a long white beard and hair spoke to his hoar antiquity. Behind his bower he had a large selection of fancy articles which formed the gifts he distributed to holders of prize tickets from time to time during the day ... Father Christmas bore in his hand a small Christmas tree laden with bright little gifts and bon-bons, and altogether he looked like the familiar Santa Claus or Father Christmas of the picture book."<ref name="LutonTimes">{{cite news | url=http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000479/18550102/075/0005 | title=Yule Tide Festivities at Luton | work=Luton Times and Advertiser| date=2 January 1855| access-date=28 January 2016 | location= Luton, Bedfordshire, England | pages=5}}</ref> Discussing the shops of [[Regent Street]] in London, another writer noted in December of that year, "you may fancy yourself in the abode of Father Christmas or St. Nicholas himself."<ref name="HerefordJournal1854">{{cite news | title=Christmas Readings | work=Hereford Journal | date=27 December 1854 | location=Hereford | pages=4}}</ref>

During the 1860s and the 1870s, Father Christmas became a popular subject on [[Christmas card]]s, where he was shown in many different costumes.<ref name="EnglishmansChristmas112-113"/> Sometimes he gave presents and sometimes received them.<ref name="EnglishmansChristmas112-113"/>

[[File:Old Father Christmas, or The Cave of Mystery, Illustrated London News 1866.jpg|thumb|right|alt=Engraving of Father Christmas at a children's party|''Old Father Christmas, or The Cave of Mystery'' 1866]]
An illustrated article of 1866 explained the concept of ''The Cave of Mystery''. In an imagined children's party this took the form of a recess in the library which evoked "dim visions of the cave of Aladdin" and was "well filled ... with all that delights the eye, pleases the ear, or tickles the fancy of children". The young guests "tremblingly await the decision of the improvised Father Christmas, with his flowing grey beard, long robe, and slender staff".<ref name="ILN, Dec1866">{{cite journal | url=http://find.galegroup.com/iln/infomark.do?&source=gale&prodId=ILN&userGroupName=herlib&tabID=T003&docPage=article&docId=HN3100527849&type=multipage&contentSet=LTO&version=1.0 | title=The Cave of Mystery | journal=Illustrated London News | date=22 December 1866 | pages=607 }} The image was republished in the United States a year later in [http://www.accessible-archives.com/2013/12/old-father-christmas-godeys-december-1867/ Godey's Ladies Book, December 1867] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211227231400/https://www.accessible-archives.com/2013/12/old-father-christmas-godeys-december-1867/ |date=27 December 2021 }}, under the title 'Old Father Christmas'.</ref>

[[File:Father_Christmas_from_England,_1879.jpg|thumb|right|alt=Engraving|Father Christmas 1879, with holly crown and wassail bowl, the bowl now being used for the delivery of children's presents]]
From the 1870s onwards, Christmas shopping had begun to evolve as a separate seasonal activity, and by the late 19th century it had become an important part of the English Christmas.<ref name="ChristmasAHistory189,192">{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kAM3zeIbYmMC | title=Christmas: A History | publisher=I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd | author=Connelly, Mark | year=2012 | location=London | pages=189, 192 | isbn=978-1780763613}}</ref> The purchasing of toys, especially from the new department stores, became strongly associated with the season.<ref name="ArmstrongPhD261">
{{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=261 | 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> The first retail Christmas Grotto was set up in [[J R Roberts Stores|JR Robert's store]] in [[Stratford, London]] in December 1888,<ref name="ChristmasAHistory189,192"/> and shopping arenas for children—often called 'Christmas Bazaars'—spread rapidly during the 1890s and 1900s, helping to assimilate Father Christmas/Santa Claus into society.<ref name="ChristmasAHistory189,192"/>

Sometimes the two characters continued to be presented as separate, as in a procession at the [[Olympia, London|Olympia Exhibition]] of 1888 in which both Father Christmas and Santa Claus took part, with [[Little Red Riding Hood]] and other children's characters in between.<ref name="TimesDec1888">{{cite news | url=http://find.galegroup.com/ttda/infomark.do?&source=gale&prodId=TTDA&userGroupName=herlib&tabID=T003&docPage=article&searchType=&docId=CS17354650&type=multipage&contentSet=LTO&version=1.0 | title=The Times | work=Olympia. - Boxing Day | date=26 December 1888 | access-date=3 February 2016 | location=London | pages=1}}</ref> At other times the characters were conflated: in 1885 Mr Williamson's London Bazaar in [[Sunderland, Tyne and Wear|Sunderland]] was reported to be a "Temple of juvenile delectation and delight. In the well-lighted window is a representation of Father Christmas, with the printed intimation that 'Santa Claus is arranging within.'"<ref name="SunderlandEcho1881">{{cite news | title=Christmas Preparations in Sunderland | work=Sunderland Daily Echo and Shipping Gazette | date=19 December 1885 | location=Tyne and Wear | pages=3}}</ref>

[[File:Domestic Theatricals, Illustrated London News, 12 Feb 1881.jpg|thumb|right|alt=Engraving of Father Christmas at a children's party|''Domestic Theatricals'' 1881]]Even after the appearance of the store grotto, it was still not firmly established who should hand out gifts at parties. A writer in the ''[[Illustrated London News]]'' of December 1888 suggested that a [[Sibyl]] should dispense gifts from a 'snow cave',<ref name="ILNDec1888">{{cite journal |  url=http://find.galegroup.com/iln/infomark.do?&source=gale&prodId=ILN&userGroupName=herlib&tabID=T003&docPage=article&docId=HN3100132662&type=multipage&contentSet=LTO&version=1.0 | title=The Ladies' Column |  journal=Illustrated London News | author =Fenwick-Miller, Florence| date=22 December 1888| pages=758}}</ref> but a little over a year later she had changed her recommendation to a gypsy in a 'magic cave'.<ref name="ILNJan1890">{{cite journal | url=http://find.galegroup.com/iln/infomark.do?&source=gale&prodId=ILN&userGroupName=herlib&tabID=T003&docPage=article&docId=HN3100564278&type=multipage&contentSet=LTO&version=1.0 | title=The Ladies' Column | author=Fenwick-Miller, Florence | journal=The Illustrated London News | date=4 January 1890 | issue=2646 | pages=24}}</ref> Alternatively, the hostess could "have Father Christmas arrive, towards the end of the evening, with a sack of toys on his back. He must have a white head and a long white beard, of course. Wig and beard can be cheaply hired from a theatrical costumier, or may be improvised from tow in case of need. He should wear a greatcoat down to his heels, liberally sprinkled with flour as though he had just come from that land of ice where Father Christmas is supposed to reside."<ref name="ILNJan1890" />

====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>

==20th century==

[[File:Father Christmas, Tuck Photo Oilette postcard 1919, front.jpg|thumb|alt=Postcard of Father Christmas with two children|An English postcard of 1919 epitomises the ''[[Oxford English Dictionary|OED]]'s'' definition of Father Christmas as "a personification of Christmas, now conventionally pictured as a benevolent old man with a long white beard and red clothes trimmed with white fur, who brings presents for children on the night before Christmas Day".<ref name="OED"/>]]
Any residual distinctions between Father Christmas and Santa Claus largely faded away in the early years of the new century, and it was reported in 1915, "The majority of children to-day ... do not know of any difference between our old Father Christmas and the comparatively new Santa Claus, as, by both wearing the same garb, they have effected a happy compromise."<ref name=" SevenoaksChronicle1915">{{cite news | url=http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001067/19151231/028/0003 | title=Santa Claus | work=Sevenoaks Chronicle and Kentish Advertiser | date=31 December 1915 | access-date=17 February 2016 | location=Sevenoaks | pages=3}}</ref>

It took many years for authors and illustrators to agree that Father Christmas's costume should be portrayed as red—although that was always the most common colour—and he could sometimes be found in a gown of brown, green, blue or white.<ref name="EnglishYear385"/><ref name="ODEF119-120"/><ref name="LutonTimes"/> Mass media approval of the red costume came following a [[Coca-Cola]] [[Santa Claus#20th century|advertising campaign]] that was launched in 1931.<ref name="EnglishYear385"/>

[[File:Father Christmas cartoon, Punch magazine, 24 December 1919.jpg|thumb|alt=Cartoon of Father Christmas speaking to a young boy in bed|Father Christmas cartoon, [[Punch (magazine)|''Punch'']], Dec 1919]]

Father Christmas's common form for much of the 20th century was described by his entry in the ''[[Oxford English Dictionary]]''. He is "the personification of Christmas as a benevolent old man with a flowing white beard, wearing a red sleeved gown and hood trimmed with white fur, and carrying a sack of Christmas presents".<ref name="OED"/> One of the [[Oxford English Dictionary|OED]]'s sources is a 1919 cartoon in ''[[Punch (magazine)|Punch]]'', reproduced here.<ref name="Punch24Dec1919">{{cite magazine | magazine=Punch | title= [untitled]| date=24 December 1919 | volume=157 | pages=538}}</ref> The caption reads:

:''Uncle James (who after hours of making up rather fancies himself as Father Christmas)''. "Well, my little man, and do you know who I am?"
:''The Little Man.'' "No, as a matter of fact I don't. But Father's downstairs; perhaps he may be able to tell you."

In 1951 an editorial in ''[[The Times]]'' opined that while most adults may be under the impression that [the English] Father Christmas is home-bred, and is "a good insular [[John Bull]] old gentleman", many children, "led away ... by the false romanticism of sledges and reindeer", post letters to Norway addressed simply to Father Christmas or, "giving him a foreign veneer, Santa Claus".<ref name="TimesDec1951">{{cite news | url=http://find.galegroup.com/ttda/infomark.do?&source=gale&prodId=TTDA&userGroupName=herlib&tabID=T003&docPage=article&searchType=AdvancedSearchForm&docId=CS118181269&type=multipage&contentSet=LTO&version=1.0 | title=Simple Faith | work=[[The Times]] | date=21 December 1951 | access-date=7 February 2016 | location=London | pages=7}}</ref>

Differences between the English and US representations were discussed in ''[[The Illustrated London News]]'' of 1985. The classic illustration by the US artist [[Thomas Nast]] was held to be "the authorised version of how Santa Claus should look—in America, that is."  In Britain, people were said to stick to the older Father Christmas, with a long robe, large concealing beard, and boots similar to [[Wellington boot|Wellingtons]].<ref name="ILN, Dec1985">{{cite journal | url=http://find.galegroup.com/iln/infomark.do?&source=gale&prodId=ILN&userGroupName=herlib&tabID=T003&docPage=article&docId=HN3100432613&type=multipage&contentSet=LTO&version=1.0| title=The Christmas Gift Bringer | author=Robertshaw, Ursula | journal=Illustrated London News | date=2 December 1985 | issue=1985 Christmas Number | pages=np}}</ref>

[[File:Father Christmas Packing 1931 by JRR Tolkien.jpg|thumb|200px|alt=Coloured drawing|''Father Christmas Packing 1931'', as imagined in a private letter by [[J. R. R. Tolkien]], published in 1976]]
Father Christmas appeared in many 20th century [[English language|English-language]] works of fiction, including [[J. R. R. Tolkien]]'s ''[[Father Christmas Letters]]'', a series of private letters to his children written between 1920 and 1942 and first published in 1976.<ref name="FCLetters">{{cite book | title=The Father Christmas Letters | publisher=George Allen and Unwin Ltd | author=Tolkien, JRR | year=1976 | location=London | isbn=0-04-823130-4}}</ref> Other 20th century publications include [[C. S. Lewis]]'s ''[[The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe]]'' (1950), [[Raymond Briggs]]'s ''[[Father Christmas (comics)|Father Christmas]]'' (1973) and its sequel ''Father Christmas Goes on Holiday'' (1975). The character was also celebrated in popular songs, including "[[I Believe in Father Christmas]]" by [[Greg Lake]] (1974) and "[[Father Christmas (song)|Father Christmas]]" by [[The Kinks]] (1977).

In 1991, Raymond Briggs's two books were adapted as an animated short film, ''[[Father Christmas (1991 film)|Father Christmas]]'', starring [[Mel Smith]] as the voice of the title character.

==21st century==
{{For|modern usages in which Father Christmas is treated as synonymous with Santa Claus|Santa Claus}}
Modern dictionaries consider the terms Father Christmas and Santa Claus to be synonymous.<ref name="CollinsDict">
{{cite web | url=http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/father-christmas | work=Collins English Dictionary | title=Father Christmas | publisher=Collins | access-date=8 February 2016 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160224152907/http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/father-christmas | archive-date=24 February 2016 | url-status=live}}
</ref><ref name="ChambersDict">
{{cite web | url=http://chambers.co.uk/search/?query=Father+Christmas&title=21st | title=Father Christmas | publisher=Chambers | work=Chambers 21st Century Dictionary | access-date=12 January 2018 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180112101608/http://chambers.co.uk/search/?query=Father+Christmas&title=21st | archive-date=12 January 2018 | url-status=live}}
</ref> The respective characters are now to all intents and purposes indistinguishable, although some people are still said to prefer the term 'Father Christmas' over 'Santa Claus', nearly 150 years after Santa Claus's arrival in England.<ref name="EnglishYear385"/> According to ''[[Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable]]'' (19th edn, 2012), Father Christmas is considered to be "[a] British rather than a US name for Santa Claus, associating him specifically with Christmas. The name carries a somewhat socially superior cachet and is thus preferred by certain advertisers."<ref name="Brewers">{{cite book | title=Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (19th edn) | publisher=Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd | author=Dent, Susie (forward) | author-link=Father Christmas | isbn=978-0550107640 | year=2012 | location=London | pages=483 }}</ref>
<!-- Do not add modern usages here where Father Christmas is just being used as another term for Santa Claus. Please consider them instead for the [[Santa Claus]] article. Thanks! -->

==References==
{{Reflist|30em}}

==External links==
* {{Commons category-inline}}

{{Christmas}}

[[Category:Father Christmas| ]]
[[Category:Christmas characters]]
[[Category:Personifications]]
[[Category:Christian folklore]]
[[Category:Santa Claus]]
[[Category:English folklore]]
[[Category:Christmas in England]]
[[Category:Christmas gift-bringers]]