The Essence of Jollity

I have a can of Green Giant corn in front of me, never mind why, and it occurs to me that Jolly Green Giant also says, “Ho Ho Ho,” just like a certain seasonal character many of whose modern attributes were created by Thomas Nast. This, of course, leads to other idle questions: Did Nast also come up with that line? He visualized the jolly, rotund fellow we know, but I don’t ever recall hearing about the origin of St. Nick’s laugh-line. Maybe it’s just a folk attribution. Ho ho ho = jollity

It isn’t in “A Visit From St. Nicolas,” though that poem has many other interesting details. I wonder if, in readings of it these days, the following lines are sometimes omitted: “The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth/And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath.” Not only is Santa a smoker, he exposes children to second-hand smoke, which would make his activities illegal in California and a lot of other places.