And even from the Palatinate, pretty close to where your ancestors came from!
Lots of good things come from Rheinpfalz.
I've been thinking about these posts, and I suppose this really belongs on the holiday thread, but I've got to wondering where and when St. Nicholas' visit got pushed back from Dec. 6 to Dec. 24?
In addition to Nast's artwork, I suppose a lot of our American ideas of the jolly old fellow come from Clement Clarke Moore's poem
A Visit from St. Nicholas (often incorrectly referred to as
The Night Before Christmas). I presume it's Moore who gave us the "miniature sleigh and eight tiny reindeer." Moore was writing in New York State in the 1820s; was he responsible for the change in date, or by then did children already expect a visit on the night before Christmas?