Will The Real St. Nicholas Please Stand Up?

And Indeed He Did

by Ogden Nash

Drawing by Al Swiller
*Holiday,* December 1963
*St Nicholas Center Collection*

Once there was a saint called St. Nicholas of Myra,
And his reputation for veracity was better than that of
Ananias and Sapphira,

So when he recently called upon me with his complaint,

Well, I knew I was listening to a truthful saint.

He was also an angry saint, he was spoiling for a rhubarb
or a scrimmage;

He was indignant over the vulgarization of his public image.

He said he hardly dared step out of Heaven for very shame

Because some obese buffoon known as Santa Claus had
mis-appropriated his good name.

He said wherever he might go

He was confronted by this Santa Claus or one of a
thousand facsimiles bellowing Ho! Ho! Ho!

None of whom had any decency or pride

Because they wore their red flannels outside.

He said if people wanted a Santa Claus that was all right
with him,

He just didn't want them to confuse Santa Claus with St. Nicholas,
which was like confusing Walt Disney with the Brothers Grimm,

Because he believed in spare the rod and spoil the child,
and let reward be contingent on good conduct previous,

Whereas Santa Claus was of the permissive school and
showered his gifts indiscriminately, even upon
the most unregenerately mischievous.

Anybody misled by the similarity of the two names
was not a homo sapiens but a most insapiens homo,

Just as likely to confuse Lindbergh with Strindberg or
Pericles with Perry Como,

Yes, they would find a hundred ways to be vague in,

Mixing up Yankee-doodle with Der Dudelsackpfeiffer and
Eugene O'Neill with Eugene Onegin.

He said this was a humiliation he had been forced to endure

Mostly thanks to one Clement Clarke Moore.

He said he had no recourse, that he was like a lion
toothless or a porcupine prickleless,

Although the so-called hero of the Moore poem was really
Santa Claus masquerading as St. Nicholas.

He said this was obvious because, if he did say so himself,

He was an authentic saint and nobody's jolly old elf,

And if further proof were needed that the identity was a
transposed one,

Why, he had never seen a reindeer in his life, much less
was he, as had been whispered lately, dependent
on the good will and sagacity of a red-nosed one.

He said Mr. Moore had compiled the first Hebrew and
Greek lexicon published in the U.S.,
and had written a biography of Scanderbeg, too,

So he was perfectly capable, before
composing his monstrous poetical tarradiddle,
of checking his facts in any hagiological Who's Who.

By this time his indignation was such that he had lost the
ability to reason well or think well;

I believe he must have confused me with Clement Clarke Moore,
because he picked me up and dipped me in the inkwell.

He thereupon departed with his mitre cocked jauntily and
quaintly.

I cannot help feeling that, St. Nicholas or Santa Claus,
his behavior was only faintly saintly.
THE END

Link

The Boy Who Laughed at Santa Claus by Ogden Nash