This holiday season the Cuyahoga County Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument is presenting "Patriotic Santa" as a free public event. Join this historically accurate Civil War Santa pulled from the pages of Harper's Weekly. Take a photo with Santa for free on your personal device from 11:00am to 6:00pm, November 30, 2024 during Winterland. In 1862 and 63 Thomas Nast, an illustrator for Harper's Weekly merged the elfin imagery from his native Germany and the European mythology of Santa Clause to create what we know of today as the American version of Santa.