Fireworks and Fruit: Memories of Old Kentucky Christmases

As a native Kentuckian, I’m fascinated by stories of life in my state before I was born. The books I’m writing now are set in the western part of the state not far from where I grew up, in a region then known as “Between the Rivers,” which now makes up a federal area called Land Between the Lakes.

While researching early 20th Century life in this area, I found interesting memories of former residents about the Christmases of their childhood, from 1900 to World War II.

Nearly everyone recalled getting a fresh orange, either in their stocking if the family followed that tradition, or among their other presents. One woman named Rebecca, whose family did not have a mantel, recalled placing a “special chair” for Santa to leave her presents.

The holiday season was the only time oranges and other tropical fruits were available. One year, her father obtained a full stalk of bananas, which the family hung in a corner of the living room as part of the Christmas decorations.

Firecrackers were another typical present for the children, something that would be frowned on by most parents today. Rebecca said she and her siblings would rise around 4 a.m. on Christmas morning, take a shovel of hot coals from the wood stove, and go outside to light and shoot off the firecrackers.

While snow was not common in

in western Kentucky, and rarely

was there a white Christmas, children

and adults took advantage of it when

it did arrive. In this photo from winter

1951, young Tom Nickell perched atop

a huge snowman, supported from

behind by his hidden father. 

A man named Ted remembered his grandfather’s tradition of “blowing the anvil” on Christmas Day. His grandpa, a blacksmith, would take an anvil with a hole in it, fill the hole with gunpowder, run a fuse a good distance away, then ignite the fuse. When the fuse ignited the gunpowder, the resulting explosion would blow the anvil “as high as a man’s head.”

Ted’s cousin Sallie described a similar Christmas Eve tradition, where Grandpa would take the family to his blacksmith shop, put gunpowder into the forge fire and pump the bellows to set off a mini-explosion, showering the entire shop with sparks.

The adults also made torches by wrapping worn-out stockings around long sticks and soaking them in coal oil. An array of these torches would be set in the ground in the front yard and then lit.

For the most part, this region did not have electricity until the 1940s, but the people sure knew how to light up their Christmas celebrations!

Parents had to be creative when it came to gifts, too. One year, Rebecca received a toy wagon made by her daddy and uncle from white oak, crafted exactly like a real wagon. Mothers often knitted the Christmas stockings and made other presents, such as dolls or doll clothing, as well as new clothing for the children.

The Shirley Temple doll topped the
1935 Christmas wish list for many
Kentucky girls.

The first doll Gertrude received was one called a “Limber Jim,” made of material stuffed with sawdust. When money was available, she said, there might be a pistol for the boys and a small china doll for the girls, maybe a little red wagon or “a small, square box with a jump-up Santa in it”—what we know as a jack-in-the box.

Typically, Christmas Day activities included a trip to grandparents’ house for dinner. Food included, Rebecca said, “real” country ham and gravy, chicken and dressing, beans, potato salad, sweet potatoes, hoop cheese, and fruit salad. Dessert consisted of cakes of various flavors, including orange, banana, chocolate, and fresh coconut. Her favorite was an orange cake with fresh orange slices in the icing.

After dinner, a hunting party would form for squirrels or rabbits, with the men using dogs and guns, boys using rocks and sticks. Rebecca remembered one Christmas when the boys brought back more game than the men.

Then, as now, celebrating Christmas meant gathering with family, sharing a meal, presents for the children, and special traditions. The traditions may change but the reason for celebrating the birth of Jesus remains the same over the years.

What are some of your family’s Christmas traditions, and how far back did they begin?

Source:

Between the Rivers magazine, formerly published in Grand Rivers, Kentucky, Winter 1999-2000, Summer 2000, and Holiday 2000 editions. Information taken from articles written by Doyle Marshall, Gertrude Savells Wilson, and Rebecca Byrd.

Multi-award-winning author Marie Wells Coutu finds beauty in surprising places, like undiscovered treasures, old houses, and gnarly trees. All three books in her Mended Vessels series, contemporary stories based on the lives of biblical women, have won awards in multiple contests. She is currently working on historical romances set in her native western Kentucky in the 1930s and ‘40s. An unpublished novel, Shifting Currents, which takes place during construction of Kentucky Dam, placed third in Inspirational Romance in the nationally recognized Maggie Awards, and second in Historical Christian Romance in the Touched By Love Awards.

When the bright lights of Broadway dim, the glow of home in western Kentucky beckons. This historical short story, “All That Glistens,” was included in the 2023 Saturday Evening Post Great American Fiction collection and is now available free when you sign up for Marie's newsletter here. In her newsletter, she shares about her writing, historical tidbits, recommended books, and sometimes vintage recipes.

Traditions: The CHRISTMAS STOCKING

 By Mary Davis

I can’t remember a time when I didn’t have my Christmas stocking. My Great-Grandma Zola (GG, on my mom’s side), crocheted it for me before I can remember. I always had this stocking growing up.

 

My Christmas Stocking!

 
Each year, my mom—er—I mean Santa—filled it with the same kinds of things.
~A candy cane of some sort stuck out of the top—some times a regular one, some times one of those big, thick, straight ones that were about a foot long and as big around as a closet rod or one of those plastic tube canes filled with another kind of candy like M&Ms.
~Other candy—often Almond Roca. Mmmm!
~A small gift or two.
~A variety of shell-dwelling nuts.
~And deep down in the toe an orange! Always an orange.

 

It wouldn’t be Christmas without the orange in the stocking.

My siblings and I immediately dumped the nuts back into the nut bowl on the table and unwrapped the gifts while eating the candy.

But where did this tradition of Christmas stockings come from?

I found two different origins of this tradition.

The first is probably the most well known as being associated with Saint Nicholas. Nicolas was a nobleman born March 15, 270 AD and died December 6, 343 AD. He became a Christian bishop in Myra in ancient Greece. He used his wealth to help the poor. He heard about a merchant who had lost his fortune. He had three daughters, and because he had no money for dowries for them, they wouldn’t be able to marry and would likely have to become prostitutes. Wanting to help, Nicholas went under the cover of night and threw three bags of gold in through the window, one for each daughter as a dowry. Legend says one or more of them landed in one of the girls’ stocking.

Another source is a Dutch legend. A Netherlands folklore tells of a man called Sinterklaas and his assistant Zwarte Piet (Black Pete) who would annually dock in different towns. After disembarking, they traveled around on a white steed and a mule. Children impatiently waited for them and would put hay and carrots in their wooden shoes for the animals. Sinterklaas, Zwarte Piete, the horse, and the mule would enjoy the treats. Sinterklaas would reward the children’s kindness and devotion by leaving small gifts, like candy, miniature toys, ornaments, and nuts in shells. When Dutch immigrants settled in America, they shared this tradition with their neighbors. Sinterklaas eventually became Santa Claus, and stockings replaced the wooden shoes.

 

My guess is that our current tradition is a morph and evolution of these two.

Does your family do stockings?

Merry Christmas!

 

THIMBLES AND THREADS: 4 Love Stories Are Quilted Into Broken Lives

Love Stitched into Four Women’s Lives

Enjoy four historical romances that celebrate the arts of sewing and quilting. When four women put needle and thread to fabric, will their talents lead to love? #thimblesandthreadscollection
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“Bygones” by Mary Davis (1st Place 2020 Selah Awards winner)
Texas, 1884
Drawn to the new orphan boy in town, Tilly Rockford soon became the unfortunate victim of a lot of Orion Dunbar’s mischievous deeds in school. Can Tilly figure out how to truly forgive the one who made her childhood unbearable? Now she doesn’t even know she holds his heart. Can this deviant orphan-train boy turned man make up for the misdeeds of his youth and win Tilly’s heart before another man steals her away?

Other stories in this collection:
“The Bridal Shop” by Grace Hitchcock,

“Mending Sarah’s Heart” by Suzanne Norquist,

and “Binding Up Wounds” by Liz Tolsma

MARY DAVIS s a bestselling, award-winning novelist of over two dozen titles in both historical and contemporary themes. Her 2018 titles include; “Holly and Ivy” in A Bouquet of Brides Collection, Courting Her Amish Heart, The Widow’s Plight, Courting Her Secret Heart , “Zola’s Cross-Country Adventure” in The MISSAdventure Brides Collection , and Courting Her Prodigal Heart . 2019 titles include The Daughter's Predicament and “Bygones” in Thimbles and Threads. She is a member of ACFW and active in critique groups.

Mary lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband of over thirty-five years and two cats. She has three adult children and two incredibly adorable grandchildren. Find her online at:

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Simple Christmas Toys of the 1800s

Nearly everyone has a childhood Christmas memory – whether pleasant and nostalgic or painful and not-so-stalgic. Such memories have the power to flavor Christmas holidays for the remainder of our lives.

My dad was an “older” father, so his memories went farther back than those of my friends’ parents. He was also a farmer, so his joys were simpler.

He used to tell about how thrilled he was to get an orange in his stocking at Christmas when he was growing up. Peppermint candy was also a plus, especially ribbon candy. And maybe a little money. As in loose change.

I don’t recall Daddy talking much about childhood toys. Life centered around work because work kept the family eating. But a little research reveals what simple toys might have meant to children at Christmas a century before my father, particularly during the Westward expansion of the 1800s.

Toys were not as common as they are today. However, children of every era and culture have entertained themselves with games and toys as simple as balls made of leather, animal bladders, or bundled rags. Hoops and sticks were also a common plaything, but what type of toy might a pioneer child have found in his or her Christmas stocking? More than likely, those surprises would have been homemade.

Fans of Little House on the Prairie may recall the new tin cup, small cake, peppermint candy, and shiny penny that Laura Ingalls thrilled over receiving one year.

A yarn doll I made commemorating the yarn dolls from my Christmas novella, Snow Angel, and a button spinner.

Other gifts could have been simple dolls for the girls made from corn husks, rags, or yarn. Boys might have received hand-carved soldiers or animal figures. Wooden trains, wagons, or spinning tops were also favorites, as were cup-and-ball toss toys and “buzzsaws” or spinners made from wooden disks or large buttons and string.

A buzzsaw or spinner, sometimes called a Sunday toy.

Embroidered hankies and knitted or crocheted scarves, mittens, and hats were welcome gifts that also served practical purposes.

These miniature mittens decorate my modern Christmas tree as replicas of what children 

and family members may have a received as Christmas gifts in days gone by.

Jumping ropes, marbles – and if the year had been profitable – maybe even a book which would be read over and over again in the coming months.

More affluent families might have afforded tin soldiers or whistles for the boys and dolls with china faces for the girls. Maybe a hobby horse or a Jack-in-the-box. And everyone enjoyed candies, special cookies, and fruit (where available) that signaled a time of celebration.

Christmas in a struggling Western town or on a far-flung cattle ranch was no doubt different from celebrations today—aside from cooking up the best food you could find and sharing it with loved ones and friends.

When asked why I write historical fiction, I’ve often pointed out that life was not easier “back in the day” but it was simpler. Something in me longs for that simplicity, and I often sense that same longing in readers of the genre.

My growing-up Christmases were extravagant compared to my father’s, but every year there was an orange in my stocking, regardless of other modern candies and delights with which it shared the dark, cozy space. Finding that orange weighting the toe of my fancy Christmas stocking somehow anchored me to a time my father found worth remembering.

I’m glad he did, for I like to think that fragrant orange was one of several little nudges that helped me on my way to loving and writing historical fiction.

How about you? Do you have a special Christmas memory that knits itself around your heart this time of year? I'd love for you to share it in the comments below.

~

Davalynn Spencer is the award-winning author of eleven inspirational Western romance titles, including the Christmas novella, Snow Angel. She is a former rodeo journalist, crime-beat reporter, and the wife and mother of professional rodeo bullfighters. When she’s not #lovingthecowboy, she’s wrangling Blue the Cowdog and mouse detectors Annie and Oakley. Contact her via her website at https://www.davalynnspencer.com. 

May all that you read be uplifting.