Victorian Christmases of past recall life Downeast

Far removed from the commercial opulence of the modern Christmas, Victorians living in the St. Croix Valley celebrated the holiday much more modestly. While it was one of two major holidays in the year -- the other being the Fourth of July -- there was always work to be done, and sometimes schools wouldn't even let out for the day. With that said, the primary documents of three residents on the American side of the valley reveal details that are relatable and heartwarming.

Richard Hayden of Robbinston
The first writer is Richard Hayden, and he shows the earliest impression of Christmas in the Victorian era in the valley. Hayden's diary of Robbinston covers the years 1821-1865, and he wrote voluminously. Despite this, he rarely mentions Christmas festivities. As the headmaster of the Robbinston school in 1821-22, he canceled school on Christmas Day -- but on all subsequent years school was held on Christmas, and in none of his entries does he mention gifts for the children or any special activities.
On one Christmas, Hayden writes that he worked on the roads; on another, he went to the grist mill in Perry or to Calais on business. "Except for one occasion when he dined with Thomas Vose and another when he attended a party at General Brewer's, we get the impression from the Hayden diaries that Christmas was not much celebrated in Robbinston from the 1820s to the 1860s," summarizes Al Churchill of the St. Croix Historical Society.
The celebration of Christmas was somewhat slow to catch on in the valley, particularly in some areas, but it spread faster in some towns -- owing to a little support from the media. In 1842, The Calais Advertiser published an editorial encouraging Calais residents to participate in the holiday more for the benefit of area children. It included a poem supposedly written by a local child and hung up by the fireplace one evening: "Come down, come down, good San Nicklaws / We like a treat from your sable paws, / We like to taste of the sweet good things, / Which every year old Christmas brings. / Come down from chimney top or tower, / To cheer with fruit the festive hour, / The year to crown and the year to close / And bless our stockings and swell our hose. / Thou'rt sent, 'tis true, by higher Power, / Than dwells in Turret, or in Tower. / And while we love the good gifts in view, / We'll love, unseen, the giver too."
By the 1850s in Calais, Christmas had evolved into a more familiar celebration, as the next writer shows.

Nellie Holmes of Calais
Nellie Holmes was 11 years old when she started writing in her diary in Calais in 1851. At the time, she lived in what is now called the Holmestead, an impressive Victorian house built at the direction of her father, Dr. Job Holmes.
From the first entry, dated November 27, Nellie mentions Christmas. She laments that the family missed their traditional sleigh ride on Thanksgiving but adds that they'll make it up on Christmas. Families commonly went out together and with others on sleigh rides, sometimes going directly over the frozen St. Croix River when temperatures allowed.
Nellie's focus around Christmas -- beyond the sleigh ride and joining her family and friends around the tree -- is almost entirely about gifts. Nellie discusses what she and her siblings expect to give and receive, along with other friends and classmates at school.
Procrastination is not a new art form, as Nellie readily demonstrates. On Monday, December 8, she writes that she'll consider making some gifts for others at the end of the week when school vacation starts -- "if I make any." Her 14-year-old sister Agnes got a head start and is noted to be working on a pair of slippers well in advance of the holiday.
At one point, Nellie buys her 12-year-old sister Anna a "little glass boat" with a goose painted on it but decides it is a "real silly" gift and she aims to return it to pool her money with Agnes and get Anna a purse instead. Anna, for her part, bought their mother a basket for $1.07.
Gifts were bought for those outside the family as well. The siblings, including 7-year-old Frank, pooled their money together to buy Margaret Perry a "real nice little doll," and Frank and Nellie paid 5 cents to buy a jumping jack for Eddy McMann. Other gifts for the neighborhood children included thimbles for the girls, wooden toy soldiers for the boys, pencils and combs.
At Sunday school, Nellie and her classmates each donated money to buy their teacher, Mr. Lathrop, a fancy Bible for the cost of $8. "He was dreadful cross in Sunday school," Nellie writes on December 19, "but I suppose next Sunday after he has got his present he will be in a better humor."
Nellie herself received a game of "conversation cards," a silver pencil, gold pen and velvet doll. The following year, she received exactly what she wanted -- a short string of corals.
As a city girl living in Calais, Nellie was off from school for Christmas, and she clearly enjoyed the gift giving and receiving portions of the holiday. While such is also the case for the next writer, F.W. Keene, his story opens the lens on rural life.

F.W. Keene of Red Beach
F.W. Keene was born in 1876 and lived with his family on the shores of Keene's Lake, where the campground is today. As a journalist himself, he recorded many memories, including those where he remembered what it was like to celebrate Christmas on the farm one year in the 1890s.
Keene describes how Christmas was a relatively big deal in the area, as young boys worked extra with a goal of raising money to give their loved ones unexpected treasures. Area shops were not well-stocked with traditional gifts, however, and what was there might be sunburned or faded. "So most of the gifts were homemade, representing ingenuity and labor, of which is after all the spirit of Christmas," Keene writes. Handmade gifts might include a newspaper rack, slipper cases or a bundle of shaving paper.
Like most children, F.W. and his siblings looked forward to what they might get. Brother Jimmy wanted knives and a sled and a mate for his single skate so he could do more than go around in a circle. Sister Molly wanted candy "besides the old-fashioned molasses sticks made at home and 'pulled' white."
Adults pined for other things. "Aunt Maria was wishing for Hoyt's German Cologne and Hood's Tooth Powder, advertised in Godey's Lady's Book," while "all Ma wanted was to have the children well and someone to help her wash dishes."
While food on the farm was "always good," it was a little better on Christmas, with "more sage and summer savory and a bottle of the ketchup Aunt Maria made last summer." Sirloin from Old Buck, an Ayshire steer slaughtered the previous fall, was served, while tallow candles made from its fat were hung on the Christmas tree. "The little fir was hung with strung cranberries and popcorn, and the grease of the hot candles made a sort of hungry smell, like a burning joint of pork."
Company was a crucial part of Christmas on the farm, with Uncle John and Aunt Thirsa arriving by the steamer Dolly Varden, though the vessel was delayed and by the time they arrived "Uncle John's mustache was covered with icicles and his buffalo coat was matted with sleety snow." Uncle John had been recruited by grandfather to play Santa Claus for the holiday, but he wasn't relishing the thought due to the hemlock splinters lining his hands. He changed his mind when grandfather gave him a gold piece for Christmas.
After Uncle John dressed up as Santa, he came in with "a sack of stuff that promised a lot but turned out to be nothing but coal" loaded up from the barn. "It made a good impression, though," F.W. writes, leaving one to imagine how the assembled children felt in that moment.
All was not lost, as gifts were distributed after that. They included books for each child and "candy bags, nuts and raisins, a mouth organ, passed from hand to mouth regardless of germs, handkerchiefs quarried out of sheets that were toenailed too thin for warmth and had to be sliced up and hemmed to absorb the sneezings inevitable in a Maine winter."
Soon, new company arrived -- a father and three children. They were strangers, but not unexpected ones, and they had heard of the farm's hospitality. "They were in an instant made members of the family circle -- and remained for seven years." The added company of the family was the best gift of the evening, F.W. writes.
Christmas clearly meant more to some people than others, and occasionally the gifts took center stage. With that said, one can readily see the healthy roots of the modern Christmas throughout the old records of that valley.
One can read more from F.W. Keene in Keene on Red Beach and more from Nellie in the recently republished Nellie's Diary, which includes entries from a second portion of the journal recovered in 2021. Both books have been published by the St. Croix Historical Society and are available on Amazon.