ReTRo HouSeWiFe

SURVEY OF THE DECADES - CHRISTMAS 1940s

How America Celebrated Christmas in the 1940s

CHRISTMAS SCENE BEAUTIFIES PIEDMONT HOME

Guests who attended the open house held at the home of Mr. and Mrs. H. Ward Dawson on Hillside Avenue, Piedmont Christmas Eve viewed as they entered a beautiful Christmas snow scene, a miniature forest of silver and green trees with a single star above. The snow-sprinkled trees and white background were done by their hostess, Mrs. Ward Dawson. Miss Eleanor Dawson (left) assisted her parents in receiving their friends from about the bay during the afternoon and evening. Supper was served buffet style. Oakland Tribune, December 25th 1940.

Legend Of The Yule Log

In Virginia, the old Dominion storied land of early American history, there is an old tradition of the origin of the Yule log that is retold every Christmas.

As the family sits around the Yule log and sips their Christmas eggnog on Christmas eve, the ancient legend is recounted again.

One very cold Christmas eve when the frosty wind howled across a world of snow, an old man was sitting in his little cabin wishing that he had a fire to warm him. Suddenly he heard the cry of a little child away out in the cold. The old man hobbled to the door and gazed out across the snow. The wind and the snow came rustling in and the old man shivered until his "onliest two teef" chattered with cold.

The plaintive cry of the child came again above the whistle of the wind. It went straight to the old man's heart and he wished with all his power of longing that he might have the strength to go out and find the unfortunate babe.

The cry came it third time -- and then a wondrous thing happened. A miraculous power filled the old man's veins. His muscles became strong and tense, his crutch fell back into the cabin and he stepped from his threshold out into the snow.

Hurrying over the snow with a speed he had not owned since boyhood, by and by he came to a little child lying in a snow bank. He bent down and touched the child and a great new strength flowed over him, a strength which seemed to give him wings as he sped back to his cabin. Arriving there, he placed the child upon the bed, tenderly drew the ragged coverlet about it and then looked to see if there were a bit of furniture he could use to make a fire with which to warm the little one.

At that precise moment a great log rolled across the threshold and into the fireplace. The little child looked at the log with eyes like stars - stars which sent gleams of light that kindled the log with the most brilliant fire the old man ever had seen.

The dingy little room immediately was filled with radiance and warmth, and as the light enwrapped the child he laughed and laughed with a melody like a song from the heart. The old man turned his eyes to where the fire burned and watched the flames leap in beautiful rainbow tints over the log, and as his old eyes watched, the colors seemed to form the shape of the Cross in the fire.

The flames of the Cross leaped higher and higher, blue, red, yellow and white, and as the old man watched this display, suddenly and magically there appeared a table in the center of the room, covered with a Christmas feast such as never before had been spread before his eyes. And never again was the old man hungry or cold, and never after that was there a Christmas in old Virginia without the Yule log and the Christmas Child to give light and warmth.

And that is the story of the Yule log as it is told in Virginia every Christmas eve.