Christmas Musings

By Karen Osburn, Archivist

What did you ask for on your Christmas list as a child?  People who know me well won’t be surprised to know that every year I asked Santa, and later my parents when it became apparent that Santa didn’t get the message, for a pony.  I scoured the Christmas “Wish Book” for rocking horses and asking for one of those with the idea that Santa might go for that.  Sadly, Santa, my parents, my grandparents, my cousin, even my aunt and uncle couldn’t be persuaded to bring me an equine breathing or carved of wood.  Oh, everyone had great excuses from “a pony wouldn’t fit in the sleigh” to “we don’t have enough land.” The last phrase being a blatant falsehood since at the time I was asking we had 3 acres and our neighbors had 150 plus there were several horse farms in the area so zoning wasn’t a problem either. 

Phooey!  What did I get instead?  Well, Santa was generous. I have a vague memory of a Christmas morning with the floor under the tree covered with presents.  I must have been about 3 that year; I doubt I would have remembered a Christmas before that.  I was frequently given dolls, I remember a “Betsy Wetsy” though I don’t remember asking for a doll that needed to have its diapers changed.  One year I got quite a large doll, probably close to 24 inches high.  It was impressive, but dolls didn’t hold much interest for me until Barbie became available.  I think it was her clothes that appealed to me.  It wasn’t that I didn’t like my presents, it is just that they didn’t hold my interest and two days after Christmas, the dolls sat in the corner and I was back to playing with stuffed animals.

I just wasn’t a “doll-type” of girl much to my mother’s chagrin.  She always wanted dolls as a child and wanted me to like them, too.  These memories came flooding back to me when I was researching an article on the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas in the 1940s. I encountered an ad for Montgomery Ward after Thanksgiving shopping sale (Black Friday was alive and well in the 1940s).  The girls’ toys mentioned were a tea set, an Army Nurses kit complete with uniform, and a pastry set for “little mothers”.  I might have enjoyed the pastry set, though what being a mother had to do with baking is beyond me.  I would not have been interested in a nurse kit or a tea set.  Where were the cowgirl outfits?  Where were the stuffed dogs, cats, and bears? Where were the Lincoln Logs?  The 1940s advertisements seemed pretty stereotypical of what you would expect to receive if you were a boy or a girl of that time period.  Girls did not play solider or cowboy and boys did not play nurse.  Times have certainly changed!

I did some research on Christmas Catalogs from the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s and found a few pages that were pretty representative of what I asked for and what I go instead.  Can you tell which was which?  I even found one page that I vaguely remembered that mentioned you could buy live pets, cocker spaniels and hamsters in this case, through the catalogs!  Of course this wasn’t a great idea then and would never work today, but it was nice to have my childhood memory verified.  I hope looking at some of this advertisements stir some pleasant Christmas memories for you and I hope each of you enjoys this beautiful season celebrating in you r own traditional ways.

Oh, I did finally get to ride an adult size rocking horse at the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington, KY.  There is enough “child” in me that I would have bought one if I had money to waste and the space to put it.  I guess there are some things you do not outgrow.

Christmas Dreaming

By Kerry Lippincott, Executive Director

Seneca Street, ca. 1947

I'm dreaming of a White Christmas 

Just like the ones I used to know 

Where the treetops glisten 

and children listen 

To hear sleigh bells in the snow.

Some of my favorite memories are associated with Christmas - the Festival of Lights at Sonnenberg, seeing The Nutcracker at the Smith Opera House and A Christmas Carol at Geva, picking out a new ornament each year for the tree, having Christmas breakfast with my grandparents, and playing “Sleigh Ride” throughout high school for the holiday band concert.  One of my favorite memories is the year my brother and I left oats for Rudolph (apparently we thought he would share with the other reindeer).  On Christmas morning we discovered that Rudolph had made an absolute mess of the oats.  Not only were oats all over our drive way and front yard but on our roof as well.  I can still remember my brother and I watching from the living room window as Dad and Grandpa “investigated” the situation.  From then on we left Rudolph carrots.

As we prepare for our 1940s themed fundraiser in February I was delighted to discover that many of the things I enjoy about Christmas date to the 1940s.

It’s a Wonderful Life is not the only 1940s holiday movie.  Others include Miracle on 34^th Street, The Man Who Came to Dinner, The Shop Around the Corner, Holiday Inn, The Bishop’s Wife, Christmas in Connecticut and Holiday Affair.

The 1940s may have been the era of big bands but the decade also saw the debut of several Christmas classics.  These songs include “White Christmas,” “I’ll Be Home for Christmas,” “The Christmas Song,” “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer,” “Here Comes Santa Claus,” “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” “Let It Snow,” “Sleigh Ride,” “All I Want For Christmas (Is My Two Front Teeth),” and “Meli Kalikimaka.”

When it comes to Christmas trees everyone has their own preference.  For me, it’s a real tree with white lights, ornaments, and no tinsel.  During World War II, however, with the lack of manpower to cut down trees and the shortage of railroad space to ship trees to market there was an actual shortage of Christmas trees.  So, people used smaller, table-top trees, artificial trees (made out of feathers, netting or chenille) and bottlebrush trees.

Here’s a few more tidbits about Christmas in the 1940s

Our Boy's Fund sent Christmas packages to every Genevan serving in the armed forces.

• To me there is nothing lovelier than white candles in the windows of historic houses. As a symbol that everyone would return home, candles were placed in windows during World War II.
• Fewer men on the home front meant there fewer men available to play Santa Claus.  As they did in countless ways, women stepped in and served as substitute Santas in department stores throughout the country
• Scottie dogs became popular images on everything from greeting cards to wrapping paper.    This was due to President Roosevelt’s dog, Fala, who had become the nation’s unofficial mascot.
• Red, green and coral colored cellophane was used as wrapping paper and to make wreaths. 
• Many items made their debut in the 1940s.  New items that may have appeared under the tree or in stockings include paperback books, Slinkys, Legos, Little Golden Books, Silly Putty, Scrabble, transistor radios, Candyland and Clue.

This holiday season I hope you will join us for a 1940s Holiday Open House on Friday, December 5 and the 46^th Annual Wassail Bowl on Saturday, December 6.  Perhaps you’ll make some of your own Christmas memories.

Exchange Street, ca. 1943

History of Christmas

By Anne Dealy, Director of Education and Public Information

Roman Feast, by Roberto Bompiani. Image courtesy the Getty.

Although Christmas marks an event that occurred 2000 years ago, Christmas as Americans celebrate it today is a relatively recent invention. The origins of the modern Christmas celebration are not found in the Bible, so much as in pagan religious traditions and 19^th-century American middle class values. Midwinter celebrations have been part of many cultures around the world and portions of these celebrations have been incorporated into the celebration of Christmas. Ancient Romans celebrated Saturnalia, in honor of the god of agriculture and the harvest, in December. The celebration included the reversal of the social order, with masters waiting on servants, and eating, drinking and raucous behavior. The Christian church did not institute Christmas as a holiday until the fourth century and probably chose December 25 in an effort to Christianize these popular pagan celebrations. As a result, pagan traditions of disorder and misrule continued, with the poor expecting food and drink at the expense of the rich and threatening mischief if refused.

Traditions of wassail and mistletoe stem from pagan religious rites that predate Christianity.

Because of these pagan traditions of disorder and the lack of biblical evidence for Christmas, the Puritans and other Calvinists rejected the celebration of the holiday in the 17^th century. Christmas was even outlawed in parts of colonial New England. While some (Anglican) Southerners celebrated the holiday with church, dinner, dancing and visiting, it was not widely celebrated in the North until the mid-19^th century. In Geneva, businesses were still routinely open on Christmas Day during the 1800s, and as late as 1900, the post office and some shops had open hours on the 25^th.

Thomas Nast’s 1863 view of Santa Claus created the image Americans have used ever since.

By the early 1800s Christmas had become a concern to the Protestant middle class, particularly in New York City, where the holiday resembled the modern Mardi Gras or Halloween. Class conflict and poverty in the rapidly growing city made the traditional reversal of roles more problematic. During the holiday season lower class New Yorkers, especially the poor and young, engaged in drunken rioting, theft and assault. Threatened by the disorder, wealthy New Yorkers like Washington Irving and Clement Clarke Moore intentionally tried to remake Christmas as a family-centered holiday using literature. Reinterpreting the Dutch legend of St. Nicholas, Moore’s 1822 poem “The Night Before Christmas” virtually invented the American Santa Claus. Stories in Irving’s Sketchbook popularized a peaceful and harmonious Christmas celebration. Merchants and ministers alike soon embraced this child-centered holiday involving gifts and goodwill. The growth of consumerism, the Victorian focus on children, and Americans’ desire to create their own traditions, all contributed to the adoption of this reinvented Christmas holiday.

The 19^th-century family surrounding the Christmas Tree.

When Phineas Prouty Jr. and his wife Adelaide lived in the Prouty-Chew House from 1855 to 1891, Christmas centered on their children. Several diary entries describe the household celebrations during the early years of their marriage with their young daughters Milly and Allie.

“Oh the excitement and wonder of this morning! The tea set! The doll! The candy! Nuts! & cornucopias!! Little Sister has her arms full of pretty things and looks wild at all this noise and frolic. This afternoon I made a Christmas tree and Mill had a private tea party.”

-Adelaide Prouty, December 25, 1859

By the 1860s Christmas was well established and closely resembled today’s holiday, right down to complaints about commercialism. For more about the invention of the American Christmas read Stephen Nissenbaum’s The Battle for Christmas.