Celebration Amid Scarcity

Pioneer Christmas - Celebration Amid Scarcity

Even as they struggled for sufficient food and shelter, the Mormon pioneers took time their first year in the Valley to celebrate Christmas and staged Christmas dinners that ranged from boiled rabbit to splendid spreads. The settlers also set aside time for contemplation and celebration at the close of the year.

Some of the story of the first Mormon Christmas holiday celebration in Utah (in 1847) is well known and reflects the deprivation and discomfort of pioneer life. Elizabeth Huffaker, who participated in that first Christmas celebration as a child, recalled that temporal needs overshadowed the holiday festivities. “We all worked as usual that day,” she remembered. “The men gathered sage brush, and some even plowed, for though it had snowed, the ground was soft and the plows were used nearly the entire day.”

On the following day, Sunday, a large meeting was held around the flagpole at the center of the fort. Children played and the group sang “Come, Come, Ye Saints.” Huffaker’s Christmas dinner consisted of boiled rabbit and bread. Despite spending the holiday in unfamiliar and straitened circumstances, Huffaker concluded that “in the sense of perfect peace and good will I never had a happier Christmas in all my life.

Young Elizabeth Huffaker may have captured the way most Mormons in the Valley spent their First Christmas, but there were some who celebrated more festively. According to the diary of Eliza R. Snow, a flurry of holiday activities began before Christmas and extended through the New Year….Christmas Day found Eliza at a party hosted by Lorenzo Young. At least a dozen guests “freely & sociably partook of the good things of the earth,” including a “splendid dinner.”

Another pioneer Christmas party was a social for the little girls of the camp, hosted by Clara Decker Young. The week between Christmas and New Year’s found women gathering at the Willis home, where President John Smith taught and blessed them; other Saints assembled to hear Parley P. Pratt give a discourse titled “The Velocity of the Motion of Bodies When Surrounded by a Refined Element.

Brother Brigham’s Mammoth Sleigh
As in so many other things, Brother Brigham’s 1865 celebration set the pace, according to the Deseret News: “Among the ‘sleigh items’ of the times, we noticed President Young and a number of the male members of his family, with a few friends, out sleigh driving on Monday, in that mammoth sleigh, with some others of a smaller calibre in the wake.”

Pioneer Santa
Other poignant and humorous scenes filled Mormon homes on Christmas morning. On one Christmas Eve in pioneer Ephraim, two young girls excitedly tacked their woolen stockings to the front of their family fireplace. Scurrying off to bed, both girls had visions of the next morning, when, if Santa Claus had made it to Ephraim on his travels throughout the world, they would reach into their stockings and find a glorious mug.
When morning arrived, one sister anxiously poked into her stocking and pulled out the much anticipated mug. Hot on her sister’s heels, the other pioneer girl peered inside her own stocking and, much to her chagrin, found only an apple and a fried cake. Dejected, she blurted out disgustedly, “Such darn partiality.” Bowed, but unbroken, the second sister managed to find the bottom of her stocking, where she discovered her own mug “and was so happy she forgave Santa Claus.” [vi]
Richard Ian Kimball is an Assistant Professor of History at BYU. He earned a B.A. in American Studies from BYU and an M.A. and Ph.D in History from Purdue University.


Others of that era also dealt with harsh circumstances with resilience and even good spirits.

Out, for those in the Old West, far away from the more civilized life of the east, pioneers, cowboys, explorers, and mountain men, usually celebrated Christmas with homemade gifts and humble fare.

Christmas for many in the Old West was a difficult time. For those on the prairies, they were often barraged with terrible blizzards and savage December winds. For mountain men, forced away from their mining activities long before Christmas, in fear of the blinding winter storms and freezing cold, the holidays were often meager. But, to these strong pioneers, Christmas would not be forgotten, be it ever so humble.

Determined to bring the spirit of Christmas alive on the American frontier, soldiers could be heard caroling at their remote outposts, the smell of venison roasting over an open hearth wafted upon the winds of the open prairie, and these hardy pioneers looked forward to the chance to forget their hard everyday lives to focus on the holiday.

Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote of the preparations for Christmas on the Kansas Prairie: "Ma was busy all day long, cooking good things for Christmas. She baked salt-rising bread and r'n'Injun bread, and Swedish crackers, and huge pan of baked beans, with salt pork and molasses. She baked vinegar pies and dried-apple pies, and filled a big jar with cookies, and she let Laura and Mary lick the cake spoon. “That very Christmas, Laura Ingalls was delighted to find a shiny new tin cup, a peppermint candy, a heart shaped cake, and a brand new penny in her stocking. For in those days, these four small gifts in her stocking were a wealth of gifts to the young girl.

Though perhaps modest, these hardy pioneers made every attempt to decorate their homes for the holidays with whatever natural materials looked attractive at the bleakest time of year, such as evergreens, pinecones, holly, nuts, and berries.

For some, there might even be a Christmas tree, gaily decorated with bits of ribbon, yarn, berries, popcorn or paper strings, and homemade decorations. Some of these home made decorations were often figures or dolls made of straw or yarn. Cookie dough ornaments and gingerbread men were also popular. In other places, wood was simply to scarce to “waste” on a tree, if one could be found at all. Other pioneer homes were simply too small to make room for a tree.
At the very least, almost every home would make the holiday a time of feasting -- bringing out preserved fruits and vegetables, fresh game if possible, and for those that could afford it, maybe even beef or a ham. Many women began to bake for the holiday weeks ahead of time, leaving the plum pudding to age in the pot until Christmas dinner.