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Tuesday, December 10, 2019

Christmas On The American Frontier


By Kristy McCaffrey

A Christmas filled with cowboys inevitably evokes images of the Old West. Back then, the holidays were celebrated much as they are today, with holiday decorations, Santa Claus, presents, and a Christmas feast. I thought I would share some historical recollections directly from the pioneers themselves.



In 1884, Mrs. George C. Wolffarth of Estacado, Texas, reflected, “Christmas day was warm and beautiful and we had a watermelon feast on the church house lawn. Isiah Cox … had stored the melons in his cellar and they were in fine condition for the Christmas feast.”

“Now, you really must hear about my Christmas dinner!” began Evelyn Hertslet of Lake County, California, in 1885. Her holiday meal was filled with items from her native England. “The plum-pudding and mince-pies were all that could be desired, and we had also tipsy cake, Victoria sandwiches, meringues, and dessert ….”

Plum pudding

In 1849, Catherine Haun wrote, “Although very tired of tent life many of us spent Thanksgiving and Christmas in our canvas houses. I do not remember ever having had happier holiday times. For Christmas we had grizzly bear steak for which we paid $2.50, one cabbage for $1.00 and oh horrors, some more dried apples! And for a Christmas present the Sacramento River rose very high and flooded the whole town!”

Elizabeth Le Breton Gunn, who was living in Sonora, California, in 1851, wrote this letter:
“Yesterday was Christmas Day …. We filled the stockings on Christmas Eve …. The children filled theirs. They put in wafers, pens, toothbrushes, potatoes, and gingerbread, and a little medicine …. They received cake and candies, nuts and raisins, a few pieces of gold and a little money, and, instead of books, some letters. Their father and I each wrote them letters, and better than all and quite unexpected, they found yours, and were delighted. In my stocking were a toothbrush and a nailbrush (the latter I wanted very much) and some cakes and a letter from Lewis …. We had a nice roast of pork, and I made a plum pudding. Mr. Christman gave the children some very nice presents; each of the boys a pearl handled knife with three blades, Sarah a very pretty box, and Lizzie a pair of scissors, and each a paper of macaroons.”

Englishman William Redmond Kelly visited California in 1849-50. He celebrated Christmas at a mining camp near Middle Creek. “Our dinner-table was quite a spectacle in its way in the diggings … its bear meat, venison, and bacon, its apple-pies pleasingly distributed, its Gothic columns of plain and fancy breads … the plum-pudding alone being reserved for [a] second course …”

Vinegar pie

Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote of the preparations for Christmas on the Kansas Prairie: “Ma was busy all day long, cooking good things for Christmas. She baked salt-rising bread and r’n’Injun bread, and Swedish crackers, and huge pan of baked beans, with salt pork and molasses. She baked vinegar pies and dried-apple pies, and filled a big jar with cookies, and she let Laura and Mary lick the cake spoon.” That Christmas, Laura received a shiny new tin cup, a peppermint candy, a heart-shaped cake, and a brand new penny in her stocking.

Wishing you and your family a blessed holiday season.


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10 comments:

  1. Upon reading the joy of these families over meals that, to them, were filled with splendor and delicious goodness even in their simplicity, I realized how spoiled we've become in these modern times. Children once so happy with a pair of scissors or a pocket knife in their stockings would be agog at the overload of expensive presents we give our children and the extravagant meals we serve at the Christmas dinner today.
    An eye-opening post, Kristy. Thank you!

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    1. True. But it's about the spirit of Christmas and I think much of that is still alive today.

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  2. It's remarkable how people celebrated in the same spirit we do today. Such variety too from grizzly steaks to pork roast and despite living conditions, there was still an effort made to celebrate! I can't imagination doing all that baking and cooking without modern conveniences. Thanks for sharing these passages.

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    1. It makes you realize how important traditions are to people.

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  3. My mom and I were just talking about what we got in our Christmas stockings as children. She received very much the same as what she *ahem* Santa, put in my stocking - hard candy, one each of pear, orange, and apple, small trinkets such as a new brush and comb, hand mirror, nuts in shells, orange slice candy, salted peanuts in shells,chocolates, new pocket knife, ammunition for our rifles/shotguns, leather gloves and so forth. By the time Santa filled my children's stockings, the nuts and fruit weren't included and other items, such as concert tickets to New Kids on the Block (ugh!), Bon Jovie, etc replaced them. Vinegar pie is one of my favorites. ;-)

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    1. Times have changed lol. I've never had vingegar pie. What does it taste like?

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  4. These memories are so special. I'm thrilled you found and shared them. We sometimes forget how it was the little things that made the day special for our ancestors. Thank you. Doris

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  5. Thanks for posting this. It's great to see how people celebrated and turned out impressive meals even in tents and cabins so much is still very familiar to us today. Not sure I fancy a grizzly steak though!

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  6. Thanks for sharing this! So interesting . . . .

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