'Our' Santa Appears --- Day 9/248

 Walk: Maybe later (cold and showery) or maybe a cozy at home Christmas

Distance: We'll see, Yoga

Norman Rockwell (1894-1978), Extra Good Boys and Girls (Santa on Ladder with Map), 1939. Cover illustration for The Saturday Evening Post, December 16, 1939

Among his many Americana accomplishments, Norman Rockwell brought us our present day image of Santa Claus.  Before Rockwell, American Santa had many looks including a thin elflike man dressed in green, a skinny gnarly looking man with a scraggly beard.  For a while he had no hat, then, when he did, there was no uniform look or color to it.  Sometimes it was black, sometimes red.

Then along came Norman Rockwell, age 19 and already a very young Art Director of the Boy Scouts of America Magazine, Boy's Life.  And his  December 1913 cover with its round jollyish Santa dressed in his red suit and hat  and, ho, ho, ho, there was our Santa.