Pioneer Christmases

D. Todd Christofferson

It is interesting to read some of the accounts of Christmas from our pioneer forebears. Elizabeth Huffaker wrote of the very first Christmas in the Salt Lake Valley in December 1847:

I remember our first Christmas in the valley. We all worked as usual. The men gathered sage-brush, and some even ploughed, for, though it had snowed, the ground was still soft, and the ploughs were used nearly the entire day. Christmas came on Saturday.

We celebrated the day on the Sabbath, when all gathered around the flagpole in the centre of the fort, and there we held meeting. And what a meeting it was. We sang praise to God; we all joined in the opening prayer, and the speaking that day has always been remembered. There were words of thanksgiving and cheer. The people were hopeful and buoyant, because of their faith in the great work they were undertaking. After the meeting, there was handshaking all around. Some wept for joy, the children played in the enclosure, and around a sage-brush fire that night we gathered and sang: “Come, come, ye Saints, no toil nor labor fear, but with joy wend your way!”

That day we had boiled rabbit and a little bread for our dinner. Father had shot some rabbits, and it was a feast we had. All had enough to eat. In the sense of perfect peace and good-will, I never had a happier Christmas in all my life.

It is difficult for most of us to appreciate what a blessing it was for them simply to have peace—to have very little of the necessities of life but, at last, to have peace.

Susan Wells remembered Christmas two years later in Salt Lake in December 1849, when there was a more formal party:

I well remember Brother Brigham’s [Christmas] party [of 1849]. Like the girls of today, on receiving my invitation the first thought was “nothing to wear.” This was literally true, as all our clothing was shabby and patched. Necessity is the mother of invention, so, after careful consideration, the wagon cover, that had done such faithful service in our journey across the plains, was brought out. We couldn’t afford canvas [for our wagon cover, so] our cover consisted of several thicknesses of unbleached factory [cloth]. This was carefully dyed and as good luck would have it, it turned out a very pretty brown. We made this into dresses for myself and sister, trimmed with silk from an old cape of mother’s. This cape, black, lined with light brown, not only furnished trimming for our dresses, but I made poke bonnets from the black with quilled lining of the light brown. I had embroidered buckskin moccasins . . . , but I believe for this occasion father, who was a shoemaker, made me a pair of slippers from his old boot legs. I tell you my first ball dress was stunning.

On a lighter note, we have this undated remembrance from James William Nielsen in Sanpete, Utah:

There were three big boys on the farm: Jim, Tom and Wayne. I used to sleep with them in the loft over the house. We spent one Christmas Eve at their house and we all hung up our stockings. The stockings were all full the next morning. The boys gave me some of their candy and it tasted like their feet smelled, but I ate it anyway.

Hannah Dalton had this tender memory of her 1862 Christmas in Parowan, Utah:

All of us children hung up our stockings [on Christmas Eve]. We jumped up early in the morning to see what Santa had brought but there was not a thing in them. Mother wept bitterly. She went to her box and got a little apple and cut it in little tiny pieces and that was our Christmas, but I have never forgotten . . . how I loved her dear little hands as she was cutting that apple.

Let us be especially thankful for family and friends and for the necessities and comforts of life.