Deck the halls
By BILL MILLER
For the Mail Tribune
Remember when the Christmas season
began the day after Thanksgiving?
I can still see Dad, his tummy full
of turkey and stuffing, reaching high into the closet and pulling down boxes of
Christmas decorations. For Dad, there was a time for everything, and the time
for Christmas was the day after Thanksgiving, and not one day before.
 |
| Christmas Joy |
Those were the days when it was
pretty rare to see even a garland or two in a department store before Turkey
Day. Most merchants, like us, had the patience to wait.
In 1939, President Franklin D.
Roosevelt, at the urging of retailers, proclaimed that Thanksgiving would be
celebrated one week earlier than normal. Traditionally the holiday had always fallen
on the last Thursday of November, which meant in 1939 there would only have
been 24 shopping days before Christmas.
FDR hoped to spur the economy out
of the Great Depression with an extra week of Christmas shopping, but what he
actually spurred, was an angry uprising of Americans who didn’t like their
traditions fiddled with.
Everyone’s calendar was wrong.
Schools had to reschedule holidays and football games. Then there were those
who said the President had no legal or moral right to make the change. The
mayor of Atlantic City went so far as to sarcastically rename the holiday,
“Franksgiving.”
Eventually, a joint resolution in
Congress set the 4th Thursday in November as the official Thanksgiving Day.
 |
| Christmas Morn |
Even so, over the last few decades,
we’ve watched Christmas begin to appear earlier and earlier in the year. We
used to joke about Christmas decorations in department stores before
Thanksgiving. Now, we’re able to pick up a string of colorful Christmas lights
days before we can even find a Halloween pumpkin.
Christmas in the Rogue Valley
during the 1800s was simple and unpretentious; muddy streets and a few hand
written signs in shop windows. There were no twinkling red and green street
lights or even a community Christmas tree. It was a time when merchants like A.
A. Davis, the “Flour King of the Valley,” delivered a sack of his best flour to
every needy family in town.
Schools put on Christmas plays and
churches gathered their members together in religious services, but decorations
outside of the home were few and far between. The days before Christmas were a time to stay home, in the warmth and
comfort of family and friends.
On Christmas morning, a few simple
gifts might be exchanged around a candle-lit tree, and then it was off to
church, wearing those special “go to meeting” clothes.
Then, around the beginning of the 20th
Century, things began to change. Electricity came to the Rogue Valley,
inspiring a few merchants to place a colored light or two in their window to
highlight a new phenomenon – the “Christmas Sale.”
 |
| Christmas Shopping |
“Santa Claus has unloaded his bag
at our store,” said George Webb, owner of an emporium he called, “The Racket
Store.” In Ashland, the holiday merchandise was a bit heavier. “What is more
appropriate for Christmas than a Piano or an Organ to give your wife or daughter?”
asked Howard Coss, of the Coss Piano House.
Tinsel and flashing lights began to
appear all over town and each succeeding year brought more lights, more Santas,
and more fun. We were well on our way to Christmas in October and enjoying
every minute of it.
May this Christmas bring to you and
yours the spirit of childhood’s happy laughter.
Writer
Bill Miller is the author of “History Snoopin’,”a collection of his previous
history columns and stories. Reach him at newsmiller@live.com or
WilliamMMiller.com.
