“If for whatever reason, you find yourself not enjoying the holidays to the fullest, let a little child lead you.”
— Sarah Ban Breathnach’s Mrs. Sharp’s Traditions
It wasn’t until the middle of the 1800s that Christmas was celebrated by most of the people living in America with typical Dutch, English and German traditions of yule logs, caroling, evergreen decorations, church services and a feast on Christmas day. Christmas developed slowly across the country as the winter holiday, birth of the Christ child, and Santa Claus were being accepted. Clement Clarke Moore’s poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” also known as “The Night Before Christmas,” went a long way in 1823 to promote the joy of the holiday. In 1836 Alabama was the first state to declare Christmas a public holiday. In 1870 President Ulysses S. Grant signed into law that Dec. 25 would be a federal holiday known as Christmas-translation of the mass of Christ.
In 1930, the beginning of the Great Depression, my mother was 9 nine years old. Her momma and daddy and about nine siblings lived on a Mississippi farm. Her daddy owned the town’s hardware store. She said they never really knew there was a depression because they grew their own food, had chickens, pigs and cows. They lived like everyone around them. Very often her daddy came home with extra food as payment by the hardware store’s customers. There was a lot of bartering. Momma always said, “About ten of us kids,” because extra kids would move in with them and that’s just the way things were.
Christmas on the farm meant waking up on a cold morning and running to the big room where the children saw the Christmas tree for the first time. The tree was part of the present on Christmas day and not before. The tree was lit all over with real candles. It was beautiful, she said. “Daddy cut the tree and he and Momma decorated it while we slept”.
She told of getting a doll once. Stockings, often socks, had fruit, candy and a quarter. Fruit was hard to come by and much appreciated. There was church and Christmas dinner. It was a happy household.
Then came Christmas 1941, mother was married and midway through her first pregnancy. That Christmas brought uncertainty, but she never complained. I wonder if in her quiet moments she thought of Mary, the mother of Jesus, pregnant and uncertain. She never complained. She was bringing forth her first-born son.
Following came Christmas 1942. The boychild was now eight months old and they were living with her mother on the farm. Her husband had insisted she and the boy move in with her mother. It wouldn’t be right to leave a mother and child alone while he was a soldier away. That Christmas was somber and mostly celebrated by women and children. She never complained. The next four Christmases would be the same. She never complained.
And here it is Christmas 2020, our COVID pandemic year. This will be a different year for most of us. May our celebrations be meaningful, slow and simple. May our hearts and minds be open. If absence makes the heart grow fonder, may our love of friends and family increase all the more.
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Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 34 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
