No Christmas tree at NPS-run Abe Lincoln home

Lincoln Home in 2007

While there is no evidence that the Lincoln family put up a Christmas tree in their Springfield home, there is no evidence that they didn't.

There is no Christmas tree at the Lincoln Home this year.

Oh, while Honest Abe never joined a church, he worshipped with his family at the the nearby First Presbyterian Church--and that house of prayer did have a tree--and they advertised its presence, the State Journal-Register says.

The metaphorical chopping down of the Christmas tree at the Lincoln Home is just another instance of the politicization of the National Park Service. Secularization is part of the Obama agenda. And they chip away--bit by bit.

The NPS served as an arm of the Obama propaganda machine with its "Barrycades" during October's government shutdown.

From the State Journal-Register:

No tree? No Santa?

That's true, but Abraham Lincoln and his family certainly celebrated Christmas at their home at 413 S. Eighth St.

The Lincoln Home National Historic Site is decorated for the Christmas season as it would have been when the Lincolns lived there. And that may not be what we would expect.

"It wasn't the High Victorian Christmas that people think of," said Susan Haake, curator at the Lincoln Home. "That was after the Civil War. The Lincolns would have had much simpler decorations at Christmas."

The National Park Service, which operates the site, says the Lincoln boys' stockings may have been filled with firecrackers, books and carved wooden animals. Gifts that might have been given to other members of the family are exhibited in the house.

While it's true that Thomas Nast popularized the image of the fat-and red-clad Santa, the Father Christmas figure goes back to 16th century England. Nast's first Santa Claus sketch was published in 1863, while Lincoln was president. Clement Moore's "Twas the Night Before Christmas" was published 40 years earlier.

The Great Emancipator was descended from Samuel Lincoln, who emigrated from England to Massachusetts in the 17th century.

NPS--next year, put a tree up at the Lincoln home. C'mon now. And invite Santa too.

Related posts:

• Thirty hours in Lincoln's Springfield, Illinois
• Abraham Lincoln birthplace site
• Abraham Lincoln birthplace site's log cabin
• "My earliest recollection is of the Knob Creek place"
• My Mississippi Manifest Destiny: Jonesboro, site of the third Lincoln-Douglas Debate

Technorati tags: national parks travel culture Civil War history Abraham Lincoln history Americana Christmas