Welcome to the latest edition of Golden Age Christmas, where we will feature a different Golden Age Christmas comic book story every day from now until Christmas Eve!

Today we look at a tale from Walt Disney's first Christmas Parade comic book in 1949, written and drawn by the great Carl Barks!

Our tale begins with Donald observing some steam shovels hard at work along with his nephews. They mention their letter to Santa Claus, which Donald says he mailed awhile back. As it turns out, though, he is mistaken...





Uncle Scrooge was still a fairly new character at the time (you will definitely be seeing more of Scrooge on this list, including a historic tale that I might be reserving for Christmas Eve!).



I love the visuals of the above panels, with the pair hitting each other with money.



What a great use of Scrooge. He wants to do something nice, but not if Santa gets the credit!

This leads to a truly remarkable sequence where Donald tries to deliver the steam shovel to his nephews from Santa but Scrooge shows up with the steam shovel that HE'S going to give to the nephews.





How awesome is that sequence where they're fighting each other in steam shovels?!!

With the steam shovels destroyed, Scrooge convinces Donald to dress up as Santa and explain to the boys that he has fallen on hard times and can't get them a steam shovel. Donald fails miserably (the nephews inadvertently mess him up, including getting him stuck in their chimney!). Scrooge steps in...



Donald has proven Scrooge a fake, but the real losers are the boys...



But then the REAL Santa shows up, and he knows what the boys were REALLY talking about when they said "steam shovel"...



Donald wants help remembering things.

A very cute, inventive and fun Christmas story from the master Barks.