Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

by Connie Cortright

Christmas is a time filled with family traditions and decorations unique to every nationality and household. These traditions follow from one generation to the next, but how does Christmas today compare to Christmases long ago?

         What will your Christmas morning look like? If you have children in your household, I imagine you'll have boxes and wrapping paper strewn around the sparkly Christmas tree. What kind of toys will they get? Probably they're either electronic, battery operated, or electric. Most of them will most likely made of plastic, also. Not so for toys from decades ago.

       My mother reported to me that Christmas morning in the 30s was much different. She went to bed on Christmas Eve expecting Santa Claus to come. Until that time, the house wasn't decorated any different than any other day in the year. During the night, the Christmas tree magically appeared decorated with candied cherries, candy canes, colorful glass ornaments, and tinsel. They didn’t have electricity on the farm, so the tree didn’t have lights on it, but but the presents under the tree brought color to the room anyway.

      What kind of toys would boys and girls have received during the 1930s? I think it’s safe to say they had fewer toys than children today. After all, it was the middle of the Depression. There wasn’t much extra cash for gifts.

  

       Many toys back then were either made out of steel or wood. My father remembers getting tractors, and trucks, all made of steel. At least they lasted a long time that way. Over the years, he and his brothers had so many pieces of farm equipment, including a steel thrashing machine, that they could re-create a farm in their living room.

       Of course, girls had baby dolls back then to care for. One memorable doll my mother received could close her eyes to “go to sleep”, drink water, and “wet her diaper”. That was the highlight of her childhood Christmas memories. Along with the baby doll, she had a rattan doll buggy. That buggy was passed down to her granddaughter many years ago.

       She also received a china tea set one year. I remember playing “tea time” with her using those tea dishes when I was a little girl. I have the tea set sitting on a shelf in my home today.

       We can’t forget about teddy bears, either. Many children had these toys given to them on Christmas Day. Some of the bears even had the mechanism to move their arms and legs.

       Many a lucky girl received a Shirley Temple doll. Her movies were very popular back then.

       There were a surprising number of toys manufactured during this era I recognized from my childhood – Tinker Toys, Erector sets, and Lincoln Logs. Are these toys still sold today? I have no idea.

        There's one gift that's as timely today as it was decades ago, and  will remain the most important thing to remember about Christmas. The main reason we celebrate this season is the birth of Jesus our Savior.

       I pray you all take time out of your celebrations to focus on that "reason for the season". Hope you all have a blessed Christmas Season.

Merry Christmas - Then and Now

by Connie Cortright

Many of the favorite Christmas songs that we hear today have been around for much longer than the era of the 20s and 30s. "Silent Night" was written in the 1800s and is still one of the best known hymns during this season.

"We Wish You a Merry Christmas" is much older than that. This traditional English Christmas carol might have been sung as far back as the late Middle Ages by carolers who were hired to sing for wealthy English landlords. The carolers would receive treats at the end of the singing session. Thus, the line in the song "Now bring us some figgy pudding..."

The caroling was done in the mid 1600s because Oliver Cromwell banned Christmas songs from being sung in churches. That way the carolers kept the songs alive in peoples' hearts. I'm so glad we have the religious freedom to sing these in our churches today. I can't imagine Christmas without the wonderful carols we sing.

Figgy pudding is another English tradition - a pudding similar to our type of dessert, but made out of figs. No surprise there! It was an old tradition to have this type of dessert at the Christmas holidays so it made it into the song.

Now, what does all this have to do with this blog site since we are usually talking about the early 20th century. "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" was arranged by Arthur Warrell in 1939 into the version that is most often sung by choirs today along with supporting orchestra. I'll link it here to a Youtube version of his arrangement:   Christmas arranged by Arthur Warrell

I do wish you and your family a very Merry Christmas found in the message of the babe in Bethlehem.

Information taken from History - Wish Merry Christmas