Christmas Treats: From Past to Present, Ornaments to Gifts

It’s just five inches, as wide as it is tall, and its red flocked suit with white trim has seen better days.

But that dime-store Santa has been on the Sam and Kathy Mellott Christmas tree every year for — as of this year — 53 Christmases.

This year, with Sam’s passing, it will be just Kathy’s tree, but nonetheless, the tubby Santa will have a place of honor, shared only by a construction paper, toilet paper-roll-based Santa that a little fellow made in kindergarten 46 years ago.

Evelyn Bookhammer has a host of information about Christmas, be it pine trees or the ornaments people hang on those trees.

Bookhammer of JB Tree Farm has been dealing with this most wonderful day of the year for many years.

When families come to the farm between Williamsburg and Alexandria each year to find that perfect specimen, they like to tell of trees of the past and what they will be putting on this latest one.

“The biggest thing with people today is color themes,” Bookhammer said. “They have different trees through their house with each decorated in a specific color.”

The stories are such that it prompts Bookhammer to question, “Can you imagine to have room to store all those things?”

But these specific colors and the lights, ornaments and sentimental decorations are today as important as the trees they are to decorate.

Always eager to keep up with their customers, the staff, or a part of the staff, JB has started its own line of ornaments.

The day after Christmas when much of the public is headed out to find bargains or make returns, Bookhammer and co-worker Lisa England are back at the farm creating for the next year.

They excel in two mediums: small wooden disks and clay.

The disks are thin slices from the trunks of leftover live trees still on the lot.

The clay is a base turned out on a pottery wheel.

The wooden ornaments are hand-painted with outdoor, animal and seasonal themes, while the clay gets much the same treatment, along with a glaze finish from the two women.

Special orders depicting special events or dates or even hometowns and travel destinations are seeing a spike in interest.

While a commercial celebration of Christmas is relatively new worldwide, it was very much a part of the lives of youngsters in Morrisons Cove a century ago.

Christmas of that time lacked the luster and excitement of today. With fewer gifts, children often looked to the public schools, especially their individual teacher, for a holiday surprise.

Ella Snowberger wrote in her seventh volume of Recollections of Bygone Days in the Cove that no teacher-financed treat at Christmas often resulted in mutiny by the students.

“Some teachers became perhaps a little uneasy at the approach of Christmas,” Snowberger wrote. “They knew the students stood to pen them out unless they stood treat.”

John P. Long, a teacher at a school in Southern Cove knew the frustration of being penned out. As the holiday approached, he gave plenty of warning to his male students to save their energy because he had a treat planned.

But Snowberger wrote of one teacher who called the bluff on the students and won.

Abram Woodcock, a teacher at the Shady Grove school failed to provide the Christmas treat so when the students locked him out of the classroom he left.

Snowberger writes that he jumped on his horse and went to his Waterside home for the remainder of the day.

When he returned the next morning he found an open door and a docile student body who never made mention of the incident.