Fun Fact for Christmas

Merry Christmas to all! A historical look at Savannah at Christmas.






Christmas in Savannah

By Tim Daiss

Once, before there were malls and fender benders getting to those malls, before credit cards, wish lists, and all of the other aggravations of the modern Christmas season, many celebrated the holiday in a simpler way. And early Savannahians, at least some of them, chose that path.

As the 200-ton galley ship Anne navigated the cold, merciless Atlantic on Dec. 25, 1732, Savannah's first inhabitants had little to celebrate. Seasick, homesick and forlorn, they faced an uncertain future. Christmas Day passed on the ship with little notice, save a simple sermon by Rev. Henry Herbert.

Festivities were also meager those first few years as Georgia's new settlers faced the enormous task of carving civilization out of a dense wilderness. By 1737, however, most Savannahians suspended work on Christmas Day. Clergymen, thinking that pleasure was sinful, set aside Christmas strictly as a remembrance of Christ's birthday and as a time of repentance and spiritual examination. Carols, gifts, Christmas trees and Santa Claus were still years away.

'Christmas day. Mr. Whitefield came from Bethesda to perform the Divine Service," begins the Dec. 25, 1742, entry of William Stephens' diary. "He also administered the Sacrament to upwards of 40 people," Stephens adds, "after which he returned to his little Congregation at the Orphan House, and Mr. Spencer in the Afternoon read the Evening Service of the day, with a Sermon."

The Salzburgers, 25 miles upriver at Ebenezer, were more jubilant than their English counterparts. One diary from that period reads, "On the 25th, the first day of Christmas, we and several others awakened ourselves with the singing of some Christmas songs and with prayer, which made us quite happy and cheerful."

A Victorian Christmas

As the Victorian era dawned, so did most of our popular Christmas traditions. In 1843, Christmas cards started to gain popularity and stories of Santa Claus, with his clay pipe, round belly and rosy cheeks charmed millions of children. Homes in the city became show- places, decked with candles, wreaths and garland. Banquets and balls were common and the Christmas dinner table received special attention. On area plantations, Christmas Day was often spent squirrel hunting, possum hunting, barbecuing game and roasting oysters. Feasting would last for days.

Christmas Eve meant games for the children and dancing for adults. Tree trimmings, caroling, fireworks and boxes of toys for children became the norm. Many presents were handmade, and gifts of food-- particularly jam, jellies and candy-- became favorites. Even plantation slaves got a break and joined in the festivities.

The simpler folk, not rich enough to own homes or plantations, still celebrated, but in moderation. Their fare usually consisted of poultry, sweet potatoes, gingerbread, and sugar cane or sorghum candy. Many still kept the religious aspect of the holiday, but that began to wane.

Also during this period, the Christmas tree, a German tradition, was adopted in the States. Some claim that German mercenaries fighting against Washington's forces during the Revolutionary War introduced the tree to North America, while others maintain that German immigrants brought it over in the 1830s. In 1856 President Franklin Pierce placed the first Christmas tree in the White House.

Homesick and heart struck

Though the nation was torn by war in 1861, Confederate hopes ran high. With visions of imminent victory dancing in their heads, southern troops at nearby Fort Pulaski celebrated like kings.

Pvt. John Hart of the Irish Jasper Greens, stationed at the fort the first Christmas of the war, scribbled in his diary, "On Christmas night, everything passed off pleasantly amid songs and jokes from both officers and men. The next night the two messes had an Egg Nog supper for themselves, we passed a pleasant evening, not leaving the tables until the drums warned us it was time to go out to roll call. During the next week we were all in the best of spirits and passed a pleasant time all of us having received baskets of delicacies from the City. We lived that week more as Lords than as Soldiers, we have enough to spare."

But as the war entered its second year and casualties mounted, claiming sons, fathers, husbands, and sweethearts, few had cause for celebration. And those soldiers who survived, separated from loved ones by countless miles and bloody battlefields, suffered acute loneliness during the holidays.

After three years of war, Union troops occupied Savannah Dec. 21, 1864, while the Rebel army scuttled away to fight another day. And Union Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman, flushed with victory, was in a giving mood. Not only did he spare Savannah the torch, he presented the city as the ultimate Christmas gift to his commander-in-chief.

The next day Sherman wired President Lincoln, "I beg to present to you as a Christmas Gift, the City of Savannah with 150 heavy guns and plenty of ammunition; and also about 25,000 bales of cotton."

While many of Sherman's men enjoyed their first southern Christmas, the composer of "Jingle Bells," James Pierpont of Savannah, lay in wait with the Confederate cavalry somewhere in the Carolina swamps, anticipating the Union army's next move. For Pierpont, it would not be a merry Christmas.

As the horrors of war subsided, and the nation healed its wounds, festive Christmas celebrations resumed. By the 1890s, commercialization, consumerism and the Christmas craze took hold. And starting in 1924, the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York signaled the beginning of each new holiday and its accompanying shopping season.

In nearly 270 Christmases we have been transformed from settlers, to Victorian celebrants, to solemn soldiers to modern mall dwellers.