Tag: Christmas Tree

On Playing Dress-Up

Most of us stop playing pretend games where we dress up in a costume by the time we hit puberty (except for the odd Halloween party here and there). Not James Edgar. No, James was famous for playing dress-up well into his 60s. He often donned costumes that made him into George Washington, a sea captain, a member of the first nations tribe, and other historical or interesting characters. James lived in Brockton, Massachusetts, but he was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1843. When he made his way to the United States in the 1870s, James opened a dry good store in that Massachusetts town.

And James made the store a great success. His natural talent for showmanship and publicity drew crowds to the business. And you never knew who would greet you there. One day, James might be dressed as Lincoln; another day, he would be holding the door open for customers garbed as Columbus. The popularity of James and his theatrics also carried over into other businesses on the main thoroughfare of Brockton. People who flocked to James’s store would then go down the block to the diner or up the street to the butcher’s shop. The other shop owners thus embraced the wacky Scotsman and his antics.

James didn’t hoard all his wealth, either. He gained a reputation for being one of the most generous men in town. If a family needed its rent paid, James would do it. If a child had to have an operation, but the parents couldn’t afford it, James would arrange for payment with the doctor. When a young person needed a job, James would find work for that teen in his warehouse or sweeping up the store after hours. And, unusually for that time, James instituted a lay-away plan for people who couldn’t afford to pay for purchases all at once. No one was refused. And he didn’t charge interest, either. These and many other acts of kindness and charity across the years caused the grateful community to name a city park after him shortly after his death in 1909.

However, there was one character James dressed up as that is remembered most of all. That character made indelible impressions on those who encountered James dressed this way. In the 1970s, during an interview about James Edgar, one 90-year old citizen of Brockton recalled that he, “couldn’t believe my eyes. You can’t imagine what it was like. It was a dream come true. I rounded the corner of an aisle of the store, and there he was! And he talked to me!” Such was the impact that this particular outfit had on people. Families came from as far away as Providence, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire, and even the big city of Boston to see James. They lined around the block outside his store. And James, as far as we know, was the first person to dress up like this in public. Oh, of course, today, you see this character everywhere, almost on every street corner during the holiday season. But James was the first.

You see, no one before James Edgar had ever dressed up as Santa Claus.

On a Christmas Tree

Al and Vicky loved Christmas. The kids, the presents, the traditions. Back in the 1840s, when the couple’s family was starting, they embraced the German tradition of putting up a tree as part of the celebration of the holiday time. That seems innocuous enough, but the pair lived in Britain, and German traditions weren’t looked on kindly at that time. People around them started to talk. Some even began to question their loyalty to the country.

Why did the Germans have this tradition? History is murky on this point. You’ll hear many stories on as to why. One obvious reason is that the evergreen tree represented eternal life–a green tree in winter when all other trees had no green. Another theory points to German’s pre-Christian past and the erection of a tree to honor the pagan gods of early Germanic tribes. There are several other hypotheses. In the end, we have the tradition from Germany–and that includes the song, “Oh, Christmas Tree,” which, as you know is “O, Tannenbaum” in German.

Putting up a tree in Britain actually began under the reign of King George III. George and his wife were both German. They first put up a tree in the late 1790s for their family. As you can imagine, when a monarch adopts a tradition from a rival nation, the public would understandably react negatively. George was already under suspicion for being pro-German. One of the nicknames detractors called him was, after all, German George.

So, over 50 years later, this British couple decided to do the same thing King George had done before. They set up a tree on a table, and they put gifts on and under it. Candles lit the tree. The children loved the tree, and that was enough for Al and Vicky to feel good about their choice to put up the tree despite what people around them were saying.

What they didn’t know was that so many people, rather than seeing their embrace of the German practice as being anti-British and anti-patriotic, saw it instead as being charming and something that celebrated family and love. It was the Romantic Period in Britain, after all, and such middle-class sentiments had developed in the period between that time and the years of the Georgian Era.

In fact, what Al and Vicky did sparked a nation-wide embrace of putting up Christmas trees. Within a few years, almost every family was putting up a tree at Christmas. Eventually, the economy allowed evergreens from Scandinavian nations to be imported to Britain for mass consumption by an eager public.

It didn’t matter that Al himself was German. It didn’t matter that the couple were held to a much higher standard than most British couples were. It didn’t matter that the tradition had not been practiced widely in Britian.

All we remember about this situation is that Al and Vicky–Prince Albert and Queen Victoria–caused us all to have a tree this Christmas.