As every holiday event should be, the opening was lovely, warm, colorful and filled with smiling people: It was the Great Barrington Historical Society’s “An Old-Fashioned Christmas.” The exhibit is open Monday through Thursday from 9 a.m. to noon, and Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Wheeler House, 817 South Main St., Great Barrington. (Free Cocoa). When you enter the first room, a replication of the 18th-century tree, look down: You are standing on the original 18th-century floors.
The exhibit traces “the history of the Christmas tree from the Colonial period to the Victorian era and the Modern age.”
Centuries ago, the first winter tree was brought into the house for light and cheer at the darkest, coldest time of the year. It is said that it was decorated with dried (or paper) roses and candles. The tree, it is speculated, predated the celebration of Christmas. The history of a Massachusetts Christmas and its first tree went like this.
Massachusetts Bay Colony, Dec. 25, 1621: It was a regular work day; those who wished not to work in honor of the holiday were scoffed at. Unimaginable? Well, imagine this: May 11, 1659, celebrating Christmas was outlawed in Massachusetts, and those who dared celebrate Christmas were fined 5 shillings.
The law was enacted to put a stop to “disorders arising in several places within the jurisdiction [Massachusetts] by reason of some still observing such festivities.”
The “disorders” were not insignificant. The celebration of choice on Christmas Day was “wassailing,” an old-world custom reinvented in the new world. In England, wassailing was like caroling. The poorer members of the community went to the “better” houses and sang in exchange for food and drink. The only difference was rather than standing outside the house, they entered the kitchen. In Massachusetts wassailing began to resemble B&E. Wassailers entered the home of one elderly couple known for their good wines and brandies. They sang and demanded “the best.” When the couple offered beer but declined to offer pear brandy, violence resulted. The end was conflagration: They burned down the house. The law against Christmas was, at its core, a law against drunkenness, fights and gaming.
In 1681 the law against Christmas was repealed. For 60 years, citizens of Massachusetts had not celebrated Christmas so the action did not result in immediate change. Even in the early 18th century, almanacs did not print December 25 in red ink; that is, they did not indicate it was a “red letter day”—a holiday. In 1761, the birthday of Great Barrington, Pittsfield and Berkshire County, there was a newspaper editorial supporting the celebration of Christmas but warning that it be celebrated as a “most solemn festival [without] disorder or immorality.”
Christmas as we know it—the trees and wreaths, bells and caroling, gifts and good food—is a 19th-century invention. The authors, literally, of the modern celebration were a Stockbridge spinster and a German immigrant: Catharine Sedgwick and Charles Follen.
It was in Lexington, Massachusetts, in 1832 that Follen and his wife, Eliza, delighted his guests with a Christmas tree. That year, his son was 2 years old and that, they say, was the impetus for the tree. Remembering the Christmases of his youth in Germany, Follen wished to recreate it for his son.
He selected a tree in the woods, cut it down, set it in a tub and hung on it little dolls, gilded eggshells and paper cornucopias filled with candied fruit. It was lit with candles.
One guest described it: “It really looked beautiful; the room seemed in a blaze, and the ornaments were so well hung on that no accident happened, except that one doll’s petticoat caught fire.”
Little damage was done because Follen placed a wet sponge tied to a stick nearby to put out fire “and no harm ensued.”
When the children “poured in … every voice was hushed … all eyes were wide … all steps arrested.”
Follen’s was not the first Christmas tree in America and certainly not in the world, but it was, as far as anyone knows, the first in Massachusetts.
In novels and stories, Catharine drew the indelible picture of rosy-cheeked children, their eyes alight with happiness on Christmas morning. Catharine borrowed from her experiences in New York City and from her Stockbridge celebrations of New Year’s Day. In New England, New Year’s Day was the holiday that included parties, food, presents and children’s games. Sedgwick used those memories from her youth to create her fictional Christmas. Together, Follen and Sedgwick transformed the image of Christmas from one of adult carousing into one of innocent joy. In 1856 Christmas was made a legal holiday in Massachusetts.
One hundred years later, in his iconic image “Stockbridge Main Street at Christmas,” Norman Rockwell captured the images and feelings that are a New England Christmas.
Through three residents, Massachusetts played pivotal roles in creating the modern American Christmas. During the 100 years between Massachusetts making Christmas legal and the Rockwell painting of Stockbridge, all the elements of the celebration were gathered up and incorporated into our modern celebration of Christmas: the tree from Germany; songs from England; the jolly gift-giver from Scandinavia, Ireland and Germany; and recipes from all over the world.
With those symbols came the joy of giving and the anxiety about gift selection; feasting and the fear of excessive caloric intake; drinking and the designated driver; and the never-ending commercials. Still, it is a treasured family affair and a vast improvement over the disreputable excess or dreary nothingness of the past.
To each and all of you, may your Christmas be cheery and bright, filled with all that we now associate with Christmas.
