As repeatedly reported here, the Economist magazines’ Christmas Double Issue is once again a Holiday Double Issue in America.

To repeat myself somewhat, the fact that The Economist has a Christmas/Holiday Double Issue is due to cultural differences between Britain and the U.S. in the matter of doing any work at all between before Christmas until after the New Year. See VDARE.com Editor Peter Brimelow’s Boxing Day, 2021: If We’re Going To Import Foreign Holidays, Why Not Import A British/Canadian One, And Give Americans A Day Off!

This year’s American Cover:

British Cover [Click to enlarge]

Economist covers are a marvel of commercial art and symbolism, and the explanation for all this is below, but the main point is that the Economist’s British editors know that there is a War On Christmas in the U.S., and pander to it. See also, as well as earlier Economist items, If There’s No War On Christmas, Why Do Multinationals Ban The Word In U.S. But Not In U.K.?

In This week’s cover—How we saw the world [December 20, 2023] the Economist explains:

AS ALWAY, OUR Christmas cover eschews the news in favour of an image inspired by the special features that fill half the issue. This year these pieces cover, among other things, the intricacies of buying shoes online in Indonesia, how climate change is affecting viticulture and the adventures of a young Winston Churchill in Africa.

Another story, on why economists love “Robinson Crusoe”, inspired three possible cover ideas. …

The final option was completely different. For an article about women finding fame online with their DIY skills Joanne Joo, a Chinese illustrator based in Thailand, produced a set of wonderful illustrations using 3D figures. The cover she designed featured several of the characters our journalists had written about throughout the issue, working together to decorate a log cabin. It had two strengths. First, its visual references to different stories helped convey the extravagance of the issue. Second, its mood of joyful warmth felt appropriate at this time of year.

Joanne’s first version worked well, but the details needed refining. Donald Trump, a horrifying fairy perched atop the Christmas tree, was not sufficiently recognisable. Nor were Churchill or Crusoe. The woman kneeling with a shoe box could have been holding a box of anything. And a wall on the left looked sad and blank in contrast to the colourful jumble of the rest of the picture.

The final iteration was better. Churchill was more Churchillian, Crusoe more Crusovian. St Donald had a quiffier quiff. [The word quiff refers to Trump’s distinctive hairstyle] A wine rack and a stack of logs made that back corner feel less empty. A final round of edits fixed the final niggles: the ostracised penguins at the window were brought in from the cold and the shoes made more apparent. The cosy scene was set. It includes hints to each one of the Christmas stories in the issue—can you spot them all?

Which is fun, but the whole Holiday Double Issue in the U.S. is part of the War On Christmas, a War the Economist denied existed in 2021:

The war on Christmas that has dominated coverage on Fox News is imagined nonsense and conservative pay­-dirt
https://t.co/ZWtaFP1Dge

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) December 17, 2021