LITTLE ROCK — Christmas has been widely celebrated in Arkansas since before it became a state. For generations, children have anticipated Christmas with its gifts as the most wonderful event of the year. Indeed, the state was only two years old in 1838 when the General Assembly adopted legislation declaring Christmas and July Fourth as official holidays. The federal government did not recognize Christmas as a national holiday until 1885.
One Christmas practice that arrived in Arkansas along with early European immigrants was the burning of the Yule log. A custom derived from ancient winter solstice celebrations, burning the Yule log involved placing a large log in the fireplace on Christmas Eve. Since labor was suspended as long as the Yule log burned, workers sometimes sought out a large green sweet gum or elm trunk. And, for good measure, it was soaked in water before being placed at the back of the fireplace.
The freedom symbolized by the Yule log was especially important to enslaved people. While it was common to give slaves a holiday at Christmas, not all owners were as enlightened as John Brown of Camden. Brown confided in his diary in 1853 that he had celebrated Christmas at home—but not his slaves: “It is a human as well as a wise regulation to allow them a few days as a Jubilee, and they enjoy it. All are brushing up, putting on their best rigging, and with boisterous joy hailing the approach of the Holy days, while we are in some degree relieved of the particular oversight of them. So, all are happy.”
The Civil War brought interruptions to Christmas celebrations. Fathers and brothers were often away in the army, funds were in short supply, and religious services were often interrupted. The 1863 celebrations in Little Rock, which had been captured by the federals the previous September, were subdued, with some churches being commandeered for military purposes.
Little Rock’s Christ Episcopal Church, located in the heart of the city at Fifth and Scott Streets—where it remains today—re-opened on Christmas day, 1864. The building had been allowed to run down during its tenure as a hospital, but parishioners painted the interior and decorated it with evergreens for its Christmas day reopening.
Christmas was not celebrated so solemnly in the warring armies of the Civil War. Arkansans, like 19th Century Americans in general, consumed a great deal of liquor and drinking in the military ranks was legendary.
One 16-year-old Missouri lad was appalled by the drinking among Arkansas Confederate troops stationed in Mississippi: “But Christmas, that first Christmas of the war, was unhappily, the most noted illustration of camp dissipation. On that occasion, everyone got beastly drunk—officers and men, the whole army indeed, as far as I can remember! …my brother and myself were about the only sober men in the regiment and spent our time carrying men to their tents.”
The late Patrick Donohoo of Benton, who wrote several books on the history and culture of the Ouachitas, noted that Christmas could have its mischievous or even malevolent side. “Frequently,” Donohoo wrote, “folks would find their buggy atop their barn some morning when they got up. One old hill man remembers a Christmas night many years ago when a neighbor, hearing noises in the loft of his house, discovered a live goat that pranksters had secreted there.” Not infrequently, heavy drinking at Christmas “play parties” resulted in fistfights as well as hangovers.
Most families, especially in rural areas, celebrated Christmas with a community Christmas tree. Until well into the 20th Century families gathered on Christmas Eve at local schools or churches for a group celebration. A large tree usually stood at the end of the room, its boughs draped in homemade popcorn strings and tied with bows. Gifts were usually exchanged among family members, and sometimes a dinner was served.
Christmas trees were usually not erected at home, though stockings were hung. John Brown of Camden noted in his 1857 diary that “we meet with the happy salutations of a Christmas morning. The little ones each ascertaining what has been deposited in their little stockings, hanging around the fire, and calling out each with childish exclamations of innocent and unalloyed pleasures at the gifts of St. Claus. We spent the day at home quietly and happily.”
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Tom Dillard is a historian and retired archivist living in Farmington, Ark. Email him at tomd@pgtc.com.
Editorial, Pages 78 on 12/23/2012