Merry Christmas to All

Nast organizes this double-page spread around a fur-clad, wild-bearded Santa Claus—still closer to the Germanic Pelznickel than the red-suited figure Nast would later standardize—whose circular portrait anchors the sheet. Surrounding vignettes show a girl clutching a doll, a boy in Union uniform blowing a bugle, dancing families, and a sickroom scene suggesting war's ongoing toll. The bottom panel, captioned 'Ulysses the Giant Killer,' stages a holiday pantomime: General Grant plays Jack, standing triumphant over the severed, caricatured heads of Confederate commanders Lee, Hood, and Ewell. The conceit is pointed—Christmas cheer fused with Union vindication, casting the just-ended war as a children's story in which the republic's giant has been slain.