While there were already artistic images of St. Nicholas/Father Christmas/Santa Claus, the first time we saw the jolly old elf as a fat man with a pointed stocking cap was in 1863, in a political cartoon showing Santa celebrating Christmas with Union soldiers during the Civil War. He's playing with a toy effigy of Jefferson Davis in a cartoon that appeared in Harper's Weekly. In fact, how we think of Santa's appearance has a bit to do with how political cartoonist Thomas Nast himself looked.

In addition to repurposing the imagery of the Moore poem—reindeer pulling a sleigh, sack full of presents—Nast also found inspiration in his surroundings. He based Santa’s bearded visage and round belly partially on himself and used his wife and children for other characters, says Ryan Hyman, a curator at the Macculloch Hall Historical Museum. Located in Nast’s hometown of Morristown, New Jersey, the museum holds a large collection of his work. “The outside pictures that show rooftops and church spires were all here in Morristown,” Hyman adds.

Though they varied from year to year, Nast’s Santa drawings appeared in Harper’s Weekly until 1886, amounting to 33 illustrations in total. Unsurprisingly, the drawings from the Civil War often fell solidly in the realm of propaganda; Nast staunchly supported abolition, civil rights and the Republicans. But even after the war ended, Nast continued to use Santa Claus to make certain pointed political statements.

Even the most familiar of Nast's illustrations of Santa Claus has political symbolism that has been lost over time. Read about Nast's Santa drawings at Smithsonian.

The sun has all the energy we could ever conceivably need, but we haven't been all that efficient in harvesting that energy ...yet. One way to capture the sun's energy is to build a Dyson sphere, or a megastructure surrounding the sun. Kurzgesagt explains how that could happen, which involves an army of robots launching umbrellas with a rail gun from Mercury.  -via Geeks Are Sexy

Ten years ago, John Cessna's mother told him to sober up and start sending Christmas cards like a grown up. He took her seriously, and made a Christmas card with a photograph of himself falling down drunk, seen above. Ever since then, his funny and subversive Christmas cards have gone viral. He's been seen burying the body, becoming a human sacrifice, and waking up in weird places after a bender. Here is his Christmas card for 2018.

You can see the entire series of Cessna's Christmas cards at Bored Panda.

Lucas the spider has found a potential new friend! Joshua Slice brings us a Christmas episode of the adventures of the tiny adorable spider in which he encounters a fly. The fly, understandably, is wary of spiders. But it's Christmas, so maybe there's some magic here after all. -via Tastefully Offensive

A hundred years ago, the world was fighting the flu. The 1918 influenza pandemic killed more than 50 million people, including 675,000 Americans. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is commemorating the pandemic with several educational projects, including a retro adventure game that will remind you of Oregon Trail.

My advice is to avoid other people like the plague, because they are carrying a disease that, at the time, was as deadly as the plague. -via Metafilter

Rebecca Frankel wrote a book about military working dogs called War Dogs: Tales of Canine Heroism, History, and Love. While researching the subject, she met a dog named Dyngo. Dyngo's handler, Staff Sgt. Justin Kitts, remarked that the dog liked Frankel, which was rare for him. Kitts asked Frankel if she would adopt Dyngo when he retired from the service.

This was no ordinary dog. Dyngo, a 10-year-old Belgian Malinois, had been trained to propel his 87-pound body weight toward insurgents, locking his jaws around them. He’d served three tours in Afghanistan where he’d weathered grenade blasts and firefights. In 2011, he’d performed bomb-sniffing heroics that earned one of his handlers a Bronze Star. This dog had saved thousands of lives.

And now this dog was in my apartment in Washington, D.C. Just 72 hours earlier, I had traveled across the country to retrieve Dyngo from Luke Air Force Base in Phoenix, so he could live out his remaining years with me in civilian retirement.

The transition to civilian life was difficult for Dyngo. He was anxious, always ready to work, and very destructive. Frankel wondered if she could care for a dog she was afraid of. Read the story of Dyngo's military service, adoption, and life with Frankel in the January-February issue of Smithsonian Magazine.

(Image courtesy of Master Sgt. Justin Kitts)

If you went to the theater to see Incredibles 2, you got to see the Pixar short Bao. If not, you are in for a treat as Pixar has released it on YouTube.

In “Bao,” an aging Chinese mom suffering from empty nest syndrome gets another chance at motherhood when one of her dumplings springs to life as a lively, giggly dumpling boy. Mom excitedly welcomes this new bundle of joy into her life, but Dumpling starts growing up fast, and Mom must come to the bittersweet revelation that nothing stays cute and small forever. This short film from Pixar Animation Studios and director Domee Shi explores the ups and downs of the parent-child relationship through the colorful, rich, and tasty lens of the Chinese immigrant community in Canada.

-via Gizmodo

A Christmas Carol, published by Charles Dickens in 1843, was not his first best seller, and according to critics, it's not his best work (although critics still argue about which of his works is the best). But considering the holiday setting of A Christmas Carol and the many pop culture adaptations, it is probably his best known story today. The public loved the novella from the beginning, and Dickens devised a way to make more money from those who had already read the book.  

Dickens intuited that his devoted public would get a kick out of listening to him read from the already beloved text, and he spent decades taking his A Christmas Carol act on the road. He devised different voices and styles for each character, so Tiny Tim sounded nothing like Ebenezer Scrooge. Writers of the period commonly traveled to give lectures, but “reading from your own work was new, and his degree of literary celebrity took it into the stratosphere,” says Carolyn Vega, curator at the Berg Collection at the New York Public Library.

The author toured the English-speaking world with his readings of A Christmas Carol before packed venues until his death in 1870. Along the way, he constantly refined his public performance, editing and re-editing his book excerpts to please the audience. Read about how Dickens took his show on the road at Atlas Obscura.

The debate comes around every year. Is Die Hard a Christmas movie? Those who agree it is then argue about whether it's the best Christmas movie ever. Now 20th Century Fox has recut the movie into a trailer that makes it a very Christmassy Christmas movie, perfect for the family to enjoy under the lights of the Christmas tree. Will this settle the argument? Of course not, but the trailer is a hoot. -via Digg

As of today, Mary Poppins Returns is playing in theaters nationwide. The movie is a sequel to the 1964 film Mary Poppins, starring Julie Andrews, so it's only appropriate for Screen Junkies to reach back 54 years and make an Honest Trailer. Or is it? First, they present evidence that Poppins was a horrible nanny, and then rewrite the songs of the film to make them work for modern audiences. As you would expect.

Developer Max Bittker gave us a web toy, a game with no aim, that could very well suck up all your spare time. Sandspiel is a simple world-building exercise, which can be a world-destroying exercise as well. In my very first attempt, shown above I built a (crooked) wall, and then two opposite worlds. On the left is lava on the sand, covered by ice and stones. There's fire and fireworks going off. On the right side of the wall, I have plants, seeds, and fungus growing. And they continue to grow while the player does nothing but watch. Eventually, my plants and fungus grew over the wall into the lava and ice field. I then burned it all down, but enough life remained to start all over on its own! There are eighteen elements you can use, each with specific properties that will affect the environment, and will interact with each other in ways that might surprise you.

Wolfie is a special needs cat. His esophagus is kinked, so he survives on a liquid diet. Jacqueline Santiago adopted Wolfie after he was rescued from the streets of Los Angeles. He nows lives with four other cats, and Santiago wanted to do something special for them all. She and her roommate contacted Hollywood Kitty Company to make a custom cat tree, which ended up being the most elaborate cat tree the company has ever made.

“The decaying tree stump on the right was made for my cat Piper who needed her own private space,” Santiago said. “The larger platforms accommodate our bigger cats like Leonidas and Noelle. Our kitty Khaleesi loves all the branches and there is a bed right in the middle just for her. Wolfie is a huge fan of being on top, as is Leo, so we made sure there was several tall platforms so there would be no fighting over the top spot. As we discussed what we were looking for, over time it kept morphing!”   

The cats love the finished structure, and Wolfie spends most of his time there now. Read about Wolfie and the amazing cat tree at The Dodo. See more of Wolfie in his Instagram gallery. -via reddit

The smell of gingerbread and the activity of decorating with sweets are both Christmas staples, but many people think making a gingerbread house from scratch is just too much bother for something that might turn out to be a disaster. You just don't know the tricks and tips! Those who've done it have developed some ways to make building a house of cookie dough much more foolproof. Learn how to get your lines straight, keep your walls from falling in, and even make stained glass windows! You'll find the tips, plus a recipe and instructions for a basic gingerbread house, at Buzzfeed. And if all else fails, you can always do a workaround.

A "Nest" is a smart doorbell security system with cameras. A "white hat" hacker is one with no nefarious intent who only looks for security flaws. Andy Gregg, a realtor in Arizona, was in his backyard one day when his Nest started talking to him! The voice came from a white hat hacker from Canada who very politely discussed how Gregg should change his password for better security.

The hacker couldn't see images through the camera and didn't know where Gregg lived, he said. But he told Gregg such information wouldn't be hard to find.

The man then recited a password Gregg had used for multiple websites.

Everyone ready? Let's go change some passwords! -via Boing Boing

Twitter user @mckellogs shows us her horse Tango. Tango is not a smart horse. He will stand out in the field during a winter storm because he does not understand that it's warmer in the barn.  

and he literally lays down like this to sleep because he's too lazy to stand and sleep, so people knock on our door all day like OH NO HE'S DEAD

But everyone loves Tango. He has visitors from all over the neighborhood. His family makes memes about him. And you'll love Tango, too, when you read the Tango stories compiled at Twitter Moments. -via Everlasting Blort