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Features

The invention of Santa

10 December 2016

9:00 AM

10 December 2016

9:00 AM

Santa Claus ate Father Christmas. It happened quite suddenly. Well, it took about a decade, but that’s suddenly in cultural terms. Over the course of the 1870s the venerable British figure of Father Christmas was consumed by an American interloper.

Father Christmas (first recorded in the 14th century) was the English personification of Christmas.

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