‘Tis the season to be jolly – but it hasn’t always been so jolly. There is a dramatic history of battles at Christmas time.
Not just the skirmishes that pop up at our family’s Christmas dinner table when a crazy MAGA uncle drops a bomb about the “Biden Crime Family” as he passes the potatoes. And not the phony “War on Christmas” that conservatives have been claiming for years that liberals are waging on Christianity. There’s been genuine, yuletide warfare. Like the terrible wars we have now between Russia and Ukraine and Israel and Hamas.
A quick Google search shows that wars seem to heat up or cool down at Christmas.
George Washington famously celebrated Christmas in 1776 by sneaking across the Delaware river to defeat the “Hessians,” the soldiers from Germany that Britain hired to help them lose the Revolutionary War.
On Christmas Day in 1831 about 60,000 slaves in Jamaica bravely went on a non-violent strike against their British oppressors, demanding freedom and wages. It ended badly for the slaves – 500 were killed or executed in the ensuing violence. But the brutal way the Brits treated the rebels is said to have influenced Britain’s decision to abolish slavery within its global empire.
Christmas time was also a popular time for acts of war in the 20th century.
The bloodiest battle ever fought during Christmas began Dec. 23, 1916, in Riga, Latvia, when Russian and German troops collided.
A horrible example of how awful trench warfare was, 60,000 Russians and 6,000 Germans died in a battle that achieved nothing for either side and ultimately helped bring on the Russian Revolution.
And who with a Netflix account can ever forget Christmas 1944, when Hitler launched his famous last gasp – the surprise counter-attack in Belgium that became known as “The Battle of the Bulge”?
Christmas isn’t always a good time for war, though. Every once in a while it’s a good time for peace.
For example, the War of 1812 ended in a truce as the USA and Great Britain signed “The Treaty of Ghent” on Christmas Eve in 1814.
On Christmas Eve in 1914, when World War I was still young, German and Allied soldiers on the Western Front held a spontaneous armistice that we’ll probably never see again.
In what became famous as “The Christmas Truce,” they walked to the middle of “No Man’s Land,” shook hands, sang carols and even exchanged gifts before going back to slaughtering each other a few days later.
Even Richard Nixon and Fidel Castro used Christmas as an excuse for doing something nice.
In 1972 Nixon called a 36-hour halt to a major bombing campaign over North Vietnam. And in 1998 Cuba’s most famous atheist, Fidel Castro, “celebrated” the birth of Baby Jesus by ending the ban on the holiday he had instituted 30 years earlier.
China has also changed its communist mind about Christmas, which was once banned by Mao and Co.. Under modern China’s later, somewhat less-dictatorial leaders, Christmas has made a comeback as a useful gift-giving holiday and economic booster.
Elsewhere, Christmas celebrations are still against the law in joyless places like North Korea, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. Celebrations of Christmas were illegal in Saudi Arabia until recent years when the murderous Saudi Prince Muhammad Bin Salman loosened the Christmas reigns.
After the English Civil War, the British Parliament passed a ban on Christmas. A 1647 law, championed by conservative Puritans, forced stores to remain open on Christmas and punished people for attending Christmas services and celebrations. The next time a MAGA relative brings up the “War on Christmas,” be sure to remind him of Oliver Cromwell and his Christmas-banning, right-wing, conservative buddies. Conservatives have short memories at the dinner table.
There’s nothing like spending an afternoon on Google to put me into the wartime Christmas spirit. Now I’m mad.
Daryl Cagle is the publisher of Cagle.com and owner of CagleCartoons.com, a syndicate that distributes editorial cartoons and columns to over 500 subscribing newspapers.
There’s a growing number of conservatives opposed to military aid to Ukraine. This podcast is a little different. I’m interested to know if you like the debate format. Let me know – please leave a comment.
That Rivers cartoon is a little different on our Caglecast cover image, without the caption, huh?
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On this week’s Caglecast we’re joined by two of our most conservative cartoonists, Gary McCoy who also draws two comic strips, “The Duplex” and “The Flying McCoys”; and Rivers, who draws anonymously and joins us with a disguise and an altered voice.
The vast majority of editorial cartoonists are liberal so the few, conservative cartoonists stand out as unusual, and often stand alone voicing ideas that seldom find their way into general circulation newspapers; Gary and Rivers are among the best among the few conservative cartoonists, and they talk about living in a world of liberal editors which includes their liberal editor who is hosting the podcast, me, Daryl Cagle.
Gary and Rivers show lots of their favorite cartoons, they enjoy denigrating Dr. Anthony Fauci; they deny the efficacy of COVID vaccines; they complain about the ignorance of liberals who watch MSNBC; they let us know that we wouldn’t have this war in Ukraine now if Trump was in office; they tell us about how the insurrection wasn’t an insurrection at all, and how most of the MAGA folks on January 6th were out for a peaceful stroll.
We could have titled this “Cartoons from the Bizarro Dimension.” …but we love Gary and Rivers. Really, we do. Here are a few of the images that are discussed in the video.
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By Rayma Suprani from Miami, Florida and Venezuela …
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Here’s my new cartoon on the heavy spending in President Biden’s Infrastructure Bill. I’m seeing inflation everywhere (except in official reports of the inflation rate). A whole lot of borrowed money has been pumped into the economy by Trump, and now Biden.
I haven’t drawn many conservative cartoons over the Trump years, but looking back on Obama’s eight years I was drawing a lot of cartoons that criticized Obama. Cartoonists like to criticize and with Democrats controlling Congress and the presidency, more of our CagleCartoonists, who aren’t know of drawing conservative cartoons, are drawing conservative cartoons. Here are a few examples …
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Republicans are livid over corporations that are cutting back on their support for GOP candidates over their election fraud lies and efforts to disenfranchise likely Democratic voters. At the same time, President Biden proposes big tax increases for corporations.
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Our reader supported site, Cagle.com, still needs you! Journalism is threatened with the pandemic that has shuttered newspaper advertisers. Some pundits predict that a large percentage of newspapers won’t survive the pandemic economic slump, and as newspapers sink, so do editorial cartoonists who depend on newspapers, and along with them, our Cagle.com site, that our small, sinking syndicate largely supports, along with our fans.
Here is part three of my story about my time as NCS president. Read part ONE and part TWO of the story. –Daryl Cagle
Arnold Roth did the theme art for my second convention, in Boca Raton, Florida, to support the International Museum of Cartoon Art.
I continued my “wedding planner” role as NCS president in my second year, and started work on planning my second convention.
At the time, Mort Walker was running a cartoon museum in Boca Raton, Florida. The museum was lovely, but struggling. The collection had originally been housed in a charming, concrete castle in Portchester, New York and I visited there frequently when I lived in NYC and Connecticut. The move to Florida was tough on the museum which was having trouble paying the mortgage on their new building, and having trouble drawing a crowd in their new location.
My first NCS convention at New York’s World Trade Center turned a profit of something more than $30,000.00. In those days the NCS kept a “prudent reserve” of about $250,000.00 on hand –enough to cover a convention that goes wrong, and now the reserve was pushing $300,000.00. With some new money burning a hole in our pockets, I asked the board to give a $30,000.00 donation to Mort’s struggling, Florida museum. Some people objected to the NCS’s donation. The loudest critic was Wiley Miller, who draws the comic “Non-Sequitur.” Wiley publicly and loudly resigned from the NCS, on the pages of Editor & Publisher magazine, because of the donation, which he described as a “misappropriation of funds,” and he later went on to draw a series of comics depicting me as a rotund, evil character, doing various dastardly things, in the newspaper comics pages. (Wiley spent a few years in the wilderness, then rejoined the NCS, and later went on to win the Reuben Award.)
Mort’s Museum of Cartoon Art as it used to be when I visited often, in Portchester, NY.
Cartoonists can be a grouchy bunch. Over time, volunteer organizations gather people who carve out niches for themselves and most of the rancor I faced as president was related to people defending a patchwork of old turf they had claimed, or thought they deserved. Some of the acrimony spilled into chat boards and social media. I didn’t win all of the battles. A big turf battle I lost was about the NCS’s longtime attorney who I wanted to fire. NCS old-timers threatened to give me major trouble if I canned their lawyer buddy, and I backed down. I ended the relationship with the NCS’s beloved travel agent, and the hefty travel agency fees on our hotel room blocks were redirected into paying our new management company’s fees. Our board was rowdy and we voted to kick one board member off of the board. I had a growing list of vocal detractors who complained loudly when I stepped on their toes. I have a pretty thick skin though, and I stirred the steamy cartoonist pot when I thought it needed stirring.
The International Museum of Cartoon Art, as it used to be in Boca Raton, Florida.
THE SECOND CONVENTION
Cartoonists in Ohio made a strong case for the next convention to be held in Cleveland, and my wife, Peg, and I did a site visit there. The Cleveland Plain-Dealer newspaper made a generous donation to the NCS to woo us. The Ohio cartoonists had proposed a hotel and made preliminary arrangements for a party at the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame. Then I got calls from Mort Walker and King Features, who were proposing that the next convention be held at Mort’s International Museum of Cartoon Art in Boca Raton, Florida.
Mort’s cartoon museum was near death. King Features proposed generous support for both the NCS and the museum by offering to throw a big party at the museum, if we brought the convention to Boca Raton. Mort and King Features thought the museum needed the publicity and a show of support from the cartoonists. Losing the museum would be a blow to our profession, and I had to agree. The NCS had held the Reubens convention in Boca Raton a few years earlier, when the museum building was under construction, but this looked like it might be the last opportunity to do what we could do to save the museum.
We had a lovely party in 2001 at the International Museum of Cartoon Art, but the museum later failed, just as we had feared. At one point, they even considered using only half of the space, and renting out the other half to a “Museum of the Holocaust” that was looking for a home in Boca Raton. I suggested that they make a revolving sign, Mickey Mouse on one side, inviting everyone to the Cartoon Museum, rotating with the Holocaust on the other side – but alas, someone must have thought the two museums weren’t a good fit.
We did a roast of cartoonist Mike Peters at my second convention.
The convention went well. Steve McGarry directed both the show at the Saturday night Reuben Awards, and a Sunday roast of cartoonist Mike Peters. I learned that many NCSers do an excellent impression of Mike Peters, including Jeff Keane who dislocated his shoulder while running up the steps to the stage, and hid the pain so the audience never knew that he was suffering. When Jeff left the stage, he was rushed off to a hospital. What a pro! Mike Luckovich took over the emcee roll for Reubens night, living up to the high standard established by Bil Keane over the course of many years. Mike did a great job, saving the day again.
I think this is a self-portrait of Arnie.
I had a huge presidential suite at the Boca Raton Resort & Club, something hotels throw in as part of a big room block. These crazy suites seem like a fun perk, but they are a burden. Though they are given to the president, they are really being given to the NCS which means there should be a party in the big room all the time, even when I want to sleep. I got a separate, regular hotel room where I actually slept, and where I could make a mess without worrying that someone might walk in.
I asked Arnie Roth to do the theme art for the convention, and I enjoyed working with Arnie as I did with Jack Davis the year before. This is the best part of the NCS president’s job. I also wrote a column in each of our newsletters and a different artist drew my portrait for each column, so I collected a bunch of great portraits. And the board gave me a lovely Jeff MacNelly original as a parting gift; it hangs in my living room.
THE CONGRESSIONAL GOLD MEDAL
The Congressional Gold Medal for Charles M. Schulz was an important award for the whole cartooning profession to show that cartoons are not “frivilous.”
Near the end of my tenure, my attention turned back to Sparky. I got a call from Senator Dianne Feistein’s office asking for help. The Senator had authored legislation that would give the Congressional Gold Medal to Sparky posthumously; this was America’s highest civilian honor and Sparky would be the only cartoonist in history to receive it. The bill should have sailed through the Senate, but it was being blocked by one senator, conservative, Republican Jesse Helms from North Carolina. Senator Feinstein had tried everything she could and was looking for help. Helms objected because he thought the award was “frivilous.” This was an important award for the whole cartooning profession to show that cartoons are not “frivilous.” Helms wouldn’t budge and it looked like the Gold Medal was going nowhere.
I reached out to a bunch of cartoonists asking if they had any contacts or ideas on how to twist Helms’ arm and I found Marie Woolf, a talented cartoonist whose work I syndicated back when my CagleCartoons.com syndicate was young. Marie had previously worked for Republican Senator Orrin Hatch from Utah; she called Hatch and made an impassioned plea for help. Marie asked me to have the NCS send a huge, red white and blue “patriotic” bouquet of flowers to Hatch’s office, which I did. That patriotic bouquet was a whopper.
Senator Hatch turned out to be a nice guy and a cartoon fan. He later wrote a forward for my Best Political Cartoons of the Year 2006 book. Tucker Carlson wrote a forward too, and he’s also a cartoon fan and a nice guy. (That’s crazy talk from a liberal cartoonist like me.)
It turned out that Hatch was a cartoon fan; he twisted Helm’s arm and Helms backed down, clearing the way for the Gold Medal –so the credit for the Gold Medal really belongs to Marie Woolf and Orrin Hatch. The House and Senate approved the award with only one dissenting vote, from Congressman Ron Paul of Texas. Hatch turned out to be a nice guy, and he later wrote a forward for my Best Political Cartoons of the Year 2006 book. There was a lovely Congressional Gold Medal celebration in Washington, but alas, by the time the Gold Medal party happened, I was no longer NCS president, and I missed out on the celebration.
By the time my presidential term came to an end, each of my Reuben conventions had turned a good profit; I inherited the NCS in good financial shape and left it in better shape. The new management company was collecting the membership dues properly, had cleaned up the records, and acclimated to the idiosyncrasies of our quirky needs; they were well-positioned to take on much of the work of future NCS events. I had cleared out much of the patchwork of claimed turf. We had raised expectations for more ambitious Reubens weekends. And, frankly, my wife Peg did most of my work.
Even though this all happened twenty years ago, it still makes me feel tired when I think about it; but I have lots of nice trophies and memories from the experience and I continue to enjoy the NCS as a civilian.
Some cartoonists complain that they don’t “get anything” from the NCS –what they get is the opportunity to hang with their colleagues and meet their cartoon heroes. I wholeheartedly recommend that all professional cartoonists join the NCS, visit the NCS site for more information about joining.
Read more old stuff about my career as a cartoonist on DarylCagle.com:
I was saddened to learn that one of my favorite cartoonists, Wayne Stayskal, has passed away this week. Wayne retired from editorial cartooning as the conservative cartoonist for The Tampa Tribune in 2004. He was a great guy, and a rare, funny conservative, with a simple, sketchy, charming style. Columnist Cal Thomas wrote a nice obit for Wayne here on Townhall.com.
Devoted Cagle.com fans will remember Wayne from the first ten years of our site. Wayne was an enthusiastic Cagle.com contributor and I often featured him on the front page and in special topical sections devoted just to Wayne. Wayne was a staunch defender of gun rights and the Second Amendment. Wayne laughed about how often he drew variations on the same cartoon of a burglar being frustrated by a gun wielding homeowner – there really were a lot of these, and they were all funny.
In our early years, when Cagle.com was partnered with Slate.com and MSN.com and we were getting lots of traffic, I often put up special sections of Wayne’s cartoons. The most popular were “Cartoon Shootouts” between Wayne and all the rest of the cartoonists, with Wayne as the sole voice defending gun rights versus all the rest of the cartoonists demanding gun control. Wayne loved these and enjoyed the crazy email responses he got, sharing many of the emails with me. These online, cartoon shootouts were wildly popular.
I’m grateful for the time and conversations I had with Wayne in our early years. I appreciate Wayne’s support. His work stands the test of time and remains brilliant. Wayne was a gentleman and a friend and a great talent. I miss him.
I’ve enjoyed the O’Reilly news. It is so nice to have a story that doesn’t involve Trump or possible nuclear annihilation. Here’s my new cartoon on O’Reilly getting the boot.
Here’s an O’Reilly oldie I drew 13 years ago. He looks so much younger …
And we’ve gotten more O’Reilly cartoons today, here are some I liked, below. I think O’Reilly is hard to draw. I have to fiddle around with his face for quite a while before I’m happy with is. Rick McKee didn’t have any trouble with the O’Reilly in his cartoon below …
This Ed Wexler cartoon is a great Trump caricature …
And I liked this David Fitzsimmons “Killing” cartoon …
The Republicans infighting in congress is pretty crazy – enough for another noose cartoon.
I seem to draw a lot of nooses. I draw lots of wordless cartoons and a noose is a good, simple, graphic threat. Here are the Republicans with a caduceus noose, from when they were trying to stop the government over and over, to protest Obamacare.
And here’s a more recent Trump tongue noose, when everyone, including me, thought that Donald Trumps provocative statements would knock him out of the presidential race – I was wrong; I guess I was playing too loose with that noose.
He was a great guy, and a rare, funny conservative, with a simple, sketchy, charming style. 
