Old Saint Knick

 As in "Knickerbocker".

A wonderful piece from Chronicles on Washington Irving and Christmas.  You can find it here.

It starts out:

According to Walter Russell Mead’s recent analysis “One way to read Trump’s second victory in three elections is that the movement for a post-American America with a successor ideology and post-Judeo Christian cultural and ethical foundation aimed at fundamentally changing American society has reached it sell-by date.”

Do not hold your breath.

The demise of “woke” has been greatly exaggerated. The unfortunate truth is that the “woke”  era under which the great mass of Americans has been harassed since the reelection of Barack Obama is merely the latest spasm of the puritanism that has periodically plagued the body politic since the English Civil War. The particular issues change, but the insufferable moralization and coercive war on preexisting cultural traditions and symbols are always recognizable.

Fortunately, wokeness does appear to be receding at the moment, the antidote having been provided by a New Yorker who “looked at things poetically rather than politically” and “revered the past and the stability that a sense of the past provides.” No, I am not referring to Donald Trump, but another knickerbocker—Washington Irving.

Born in 1783, the year of victory over the British, Irving’s life would span the entire antebellum period of American history. Fittingly named after the father of his country, Irving would go on to establish himself as the Father of American Literature. He believed that America’s puritanical impulses stunted healthy cultural development, a belief developed in rebellion against a puritanical upbringing under Irving’s strict Presbyterian father.

“I have no relish for puritans either in religion or politics, who are pushing for principles to an extreme, and overturning everything that stands in the way of their own zealous career,” wrote Irving. Instead, Irving had faith in tradition where “population, manners, and customs remained fixed.” And nowhere is Irving’s impact on American traditions greater than in how we celebrate Christmas.

Click here for the rest.