Turkeys! who on corn have fed,

Welcome to us, now you’ re dead,

And in the frost have hung.

” Now’s the day, and now’s the hour,”

Photo from the Warren Mail “We ask what shall I buy for Christmas? The town is full of pretty goods and lots of them.” Perhaps the most significant difference in how Christmas is celebrated now as opposed to 1877? The prices....

Through the the market how we scour,

seeking Turkeys to devour,

Turkeys old and young.

Who would be a Turkey hen,

Fed and fattened in a pen,

Killed and eat by hungry men;

Can you tell, I pray?

Lay the proud old Turkeys low,

Let the young ones run and grow,

To market they’re not fit to go

Till next Christmas day.

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That poem was published in an 1840 edition of the Warren Democratic Advocate under the headline “Patriotic Song for Christmas.”

I’m going to go out on a limb and say that in those days turkey was the predominant Christmas meal here. Just a hunch.

A look back at Christmas in the county in the 19th and early 20th centuries reveals, in all honesty, fewer contrasting elements to today than I anticipated.

The first one that caught my eye, though, was linguistic.

“To be humbugged, or not to be humbugged – that’s the question,” the editors of the Jan. 1, 1852 Warren Mail asked.

But the story had nothing to do with Christmas. In a twist of language development over the span of 150 years, by humbug they meant critical, or skeptical; especially of shows that traveled into the county.

It included the phrase “It has been stated that the people of Warren are skeptical in regard to these new branches of science….”

But it was really about traveling shows.

“We wish we were still more skeptical, and that our authorities would in no case allow them to perform, without a certificate of good character at least….”

We might think of Christmas as more commercial than the past and, given the birth of the internet and global shipping, I suppose it is.

But that doesn’t mean that advertising is a modern invention.

“The coming Holiday season, being one highly desirable for making gifts between friends; I wish pleasure call attention to my stock of BOOKS, TOYS, and CONFECTIONERS, for the coming Holidays,” an 1859 advertisement for Barclay’s News Depot, located on the 400 block of Pennsylvania Ave. W., suggested. “Consisting in Poetical, Religious, Historical, Childrens and Miscellaneous Books – in rich handsome as well as plain bindings.”

Barclay’s also touted their “large stock of prize candles.

“All wanting anything in the above line cannot do better than to, at least, call and see my stock before purchasing elsewhere.”

“Christmas morning was warm and sunny with a little sleighing,” an edition of the Warren Mail reported in 1865.

“Warren beats all places of its inches for a Christmas. And never was it observed with more gusto than on Monday last. Everybody and his wife seemed to be jubilating. Business, so far as it could be, was suspended. The merchants reaped a rich harvest and the children, little and big, were made glad.”

The only possible damper on the day was a potential fight.

“There was a ‘right smart chance’ for a fight in town on Christmas day – a very rare thing in Warren – till the Burgess closed up the liquor shops and restored good order,” the paper reported. “Query, If shutting up shop is necessary for good order temporarily, why not break all the toddy sticks and have perpetual good order?”

“Never does the kitchen clatter with savory dishes as now when the boys and the girls come home and the family is relinked around the old homestead fire,” an additional 1865 edition claimed. “The roast turkeys and the broiled chickens and the mince pies and the goodies generally, are a slight to behind and a crown of glory to the cook.”

“Christmas has come and gone but its pleasant memories live in many hearts made happy by its offerings of friendship and love,” the Mail editors reported on Dec. 28, 1869. “Seldom have we seen it more generally observed in Warren than this year.”

1869 marked the the time Christmas trees had been put up at the Presbyterian and Episcopal churches.

“The little ones,” according to the Mail, “most of whom probably never saw a Christmas tree in Church before, were delighted with the sight and manifested their pleasure with all the earnestness and honesty of childhood.”

Flash forward and the editors took a stab at comparing Christmas in 1874 with the past.

“We remember when Christmas day was very poorly observed in Warren,” they wrote. “Few places of business were closed and none of the Churches held extra service. Now it is more generally observed every year. This year nearly all places of business were closed at least a part of the day, while every Church had Christmas trees and Sunday School exercises more or less elaborate.”

The article went on to explain the various services and observances held at churches throughout the community.

“The chief feature of the evening was an original exercise called ‘The Star of Bethlehem,'” at the Methodist church. “Twenty-nine boys and girls appeared one at a time, holding up a letter, and reciting a Scriptural verse commencing with that letter, when the letters were fastened upon a star, seven feet in hight (sic) and illuminated by wax tapers the whole forming the inscription ‘On earth peace, good will toward men.’

Some hemlock trimming catching fire from a lamp interrupted this beautiful exercise but no harm was done.”

“This year seemed to be much more general than last year,” Christmas reports in 1879 detailed. “Dealers in dry goods, jewelry and fancy goods report their sales to be very much larger than for several years past. The weather was decidedly wintry, with good sleighing and a frosty air, and the day and evening seemed to be crowded with enjoyment.

That edition included what amounts to a Christmas Around The County section.

In Tidioute, 20 couples when sleigh riding and people in Sugar Grove noticed “on our streets the faces of many former residents whom the holiday vacations have permitted to visit former homes and friends.”

“Several family Christmas trees” were specially noted in Lottsville while “a Christmas tree was one of the novelties at the church Christmas Eve” on Quaker Hill.

But it wasn’t all snow and church.

In Russell, a Christmas Eve dance attracted 46 couples.

“All express themselves well pleased.”