Have a hubble bubble Christmas

I just received a book in the mail—a copy of The Year Without a Santa Claus by Phyllis McGinley, with illustrations by Kurt Werth.  The J.B. Lippincott Company published this title in 1956.

This was the poem that inspired the animated TV special from the 1970s.

But what to my wondering eyes should appear—is Santa Claus enjoying a few puffs from his hookah?

Whoa—what heady days the fifties were for kids’ book illustrators! Fat chance something like this would pass muster with an art director nowadays!

Come to think of it, a few years ago I did do a project that called for Santa to smoke a cigar.  I’ll dig around in the attic and unearth those sketches for a future post.

0 replies
  1. Ilene Winn-Lederer
    Ilene Winn-Lederer says:

    If I read that book as a kid, which was quite possible, I sure didn’t notice the hookah! In today’s twisted world, that poor old Santa would be nailed as a terrorist sympathizer and the book would be banned in Kansas. Ironically, despite the fact that the 50’s were so culturally conservative, I can understand the nostalgia they provoke…

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Trackbacks & Pingbacks

  1. […] are really more decoration than illustration.  They have a loose, watercolory look.  My favorite image from that edition is the one on the cover of Santa relaxing in an easy chair, smoking a […]

  2. […] A few posts ago I zeroed in on a book cover from the fifties showing Santa Claus smoking tobacco from a hookah.  Pretty unusual, right?  Nothing like what you’d see Santa doing in a kids’ book nowadays.  Well, not so long ago I illustrated A Soldiers’ Night Before Christmas by Trish Holland and Christine Ford (both military moms), in which an army base in the MidEast is paid a visit on Christmas eve.  Instead of Santa Claus, it’s grizzled old Sargent McClaus who swoops in on his flying jeep, accompanied by eight humvees and a red-nosed Blackhawk helicopter. […]

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