Santa Claus Plays Safe With Asbestos Whiskers (1922)

One wonders what sort of long-term problems asbestos whiskers created for Santa Clauses and kids in place of fire. Christmas fires had been very serious, though, with deaths in a single room easily reaching a couple score and injuries exceeding 100.

Santa Claus Plays Safe With Asbestos Whiskers

They say that Santa's whiskers, and the festive twigs of holly
And the cotton snow and candles and such doo-dads are all folly;
	For they have a distinct relation
	To a sudden conflagration—
So the hirsutes of asbestos are the fashion now, by golly.

O, the Yuletide is the fool-tide 'mongst the mortals making merry;
O, beware of dangers lurking in the whiskers that you carry!

The cheery lights of Christmas sometimes make a glow that singes
When they kindle cotton whiskers, or excelsior's potent fringes.
	For in spite of all disguising
	A combustion that's surprising
Brings the fireman with a damper that disheartens and impinges.

O, the Yuletide is the fool-tide 'mongst the mortals making merry;
O, beware of dangers lurking in the whiskers that you carry!

—
SANTA CLAUS should wear asbestos whiskers, according to the National Board of Fire Underwriters, who are broadcasting circulars which set forth some of the indiscretions of Christmas festivities—indiscretions that are designed to advance Christmas cheer, but too often result in advancing fire insurance premiums and payments. The cotton whiskers all too commonly worn by the Santa Claus clan are exceedingly prone to catch the glow of Christmas light, and to become ablaze with a halo of glory therefrom. And this is speaking literally.

Idealists and poets may expatiate on the warmth and light of the Yuletide, but the fire underwriters are practical materialists whose business it is to discourage warmth and light in certain manifestations.
Cotton, according to the munitions chemist, is a highly desirable ingredient for the manufacture of high explosives, and for that very reason is not an especially happy substitute for Santa Claus's whiskers, or for snow on the Christmas tree. The idea of Santa Claus toying with real fire of Christmas tree candles while wearing false whiskers is inconsistent, to say the least, and although it all provides diversion, and oftentimes excitement for the kiddies, it doesn't provide an even break for Santa. If Santa is to beard the fire in the fireplace at the church entertainment it would not be unwise for him at least to use a real beard to do it with, and it wouldn't hurt to go the safety first idea one better—or two better—and wear asbestos whiskers and keep entirely away from fire.

Thus speaketh the propaganda propagated by the National Board of Fire Underwriters, whose idea of Christmas is that it should be a fireproof Christmas, minus the cotton snow entwined among the candles on the Christmas tree, and with Santa Claus equipped with the latest approved and inspected fire extinguisher. Fire is all right in connection with the Yule log, the underwriters are ready to admit, but they also observe that many of the warm things associated with the old Christmas have passed away.
Cotton whiskers may be entirely adequate to create an illusion in the innocent minds of credulent childhood, but a spark of fire, be it ever so young and inexperienced, is too inquisitive to be deceived by cotton whiskers.
H. D.
Kansas City Star [MO]. December 23, 1922.