Christmas is upon us once again, and with it come all of the trappings we associate with the holiday season: decorated houses; Christmas lights and other displays downtown and in store windows, Christmas music everywhere we go, shopping mall Santas and shoppers with their arms full of presents.
However, it wasn’t always like this.
Although the people of Elora and Fergus have celebrated Christmas ever since the communities were founded, our forebears didn’t initially go about it with so much bustle and noise. For many of them, the most important traditions were going to church on Christmas Day and visiting family and friends. Not until the 1870s did clergy consider it necessary to advertise church services, because the people of the various congregations knew when to be there. Of course, everybody who attended church at Christmas wore their Sunday best.
It wasn’t until 1854 that local merchants decided it would be a good idea to advertise that they would be closed on Christmas Day and New Year’s Day. Before that, they just assumed that small town folks would take it for granted. Store clerks were glad of the days off, because they worked long hours; 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on weekdays, and 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. on market days.
Santa visited the homes of kids in town and on the farm on Christmas Eve, but he didn’t make a personal appearance in any local retailer until 1873, when he first became a regular Christmas feature in Perry’s Drug Store in Elora. The Santa Claus Parade was still well off in the future.
There was no such thing as an artificial Christmas tree. In every house that had a Christmas tree, it was a real one of spruce or pine, filling the room with its evergreen scent. Decorations on the tree were often hand-made. Before the coming of electric Christmas lights, some people actually put candles on the boughs of the tree and lit them. The effect was beautiful, but an open flame on an evergreen tree was a major fire hazard, and sometimes there were tragic consequences.
For many kids, Christmas celebrations began with a school concert, in some cases in a one-room schoolhouse in the country. Of course, there would be Christmas carols, which all of the children joined in singing. But that was just part of the program. Some kids, perhaps with more courage than actual vocal talent, would sing solo, treating the gathering of teachers and parents to a rendition of Silent Night or Away in a Manger. Young musicians demonstrated their ability on instruments like the recorder and piano.
Kids who couldn’t sing a tune or play a note might take on a role in a Christmas play, dressing up as angels and shepherds. Since there weren’t enough parts in the play for everybody, the kids who didn’t make the cut would entertain in other ways, such as demonstrating their gymnastics by doing a few somersaults on a mat or making a human pyramid.
The classroom or auditorium would be decked out with evergreen boughs and red and green tissue paper, along with some tinsel and Christmas ornaments. With luck, there’d be a visit from Santa, played by some willing teacher or someone’s dad or grandfather. It was always hoped, especially for those folks in rural schoolhouses, that a winter storm wouldn’t blow in and keep people from attending – or that a sudden blizzard wouldn’t sweep down during the show and make it difficult for everybody to get back home.
It’s hardly surprising that alcoholic beverages, then as now, were a big part of Christmas festivities for many people (but of course, not all). The consumption of alcohol was part of daily life in frontier communities, because the water wasn’t always safe to drink. Surplus grain was converted into beer and whisky because they were easier to transport, and the mash could be fed to livestock. Breweries and distilleries like J.M. Fraser’s in Elora popped up in Wellington County just as they did everywhere else in 19th century Ontario. They served the needs of the many taverns, inns and hotels in the communities and along the roads that connected them. In a region where cash could be scarce, whisky sometimes served as currency. So naturally, the booze flowed at Christmas.
Some people would toast the season with wine, and for those who could afford it, the best vintages would grace the tables at Christmas dinner. But more often than not, locally made whisky was the Christmas cheer of choice. It was served in a variety of ways, including spiced, mulled, straight up or in some concoction known as an “American drink” that might come in the form of something with an exotic name like “invigorator,” “locomotive,” or “corpse reviver.”
One year, there was a theft of liquor shortly before Christmas. Anyone who made or sold alcohol had to pay taxes on it. In December of 1868, local newspapers reported that 98 barrels of whisky had been stolen from a bonded warehouse after being seized from Anderson’s Distillery in Fergus due to “infractions of the revenue laws.” A government officer had seen the barrels in the warehouse on a Saturday afternoon when he locked the place up, but they were gone when he returned on Monday. How the thieves got in without breaking the door down and then quietly carried off the heavy barrels without being seen was a mystery. Did someone have a dry Christmas because of the heist? Or did someone else have a Christmas that was merrier than usual?
Merry Christmas to all.
