John Cheever was the one person in all West Roxbury who sympathized with my sister and myself in the most grievous trial we ever encountered as children. The Brook Farmers and all their neighbors ignored Christmas. They knew nothing and cared nothing about that wondrous season of joy for the little ones, and could not in the least understand how it was that Althea and I were so sorely hurt by such a trifle as the neglect of an old and forgotten custom. John Cheever did understand. He was a Catholic and while not at all devout, he still held in reverence the sacred observances of the church. He it was who explained to us that the New England Puritans were bitterly hostile to anything and everything savoring of what they called Popery, imposing severe penalties on misguided wretches who dared to show respect for old beliefs. He said that the General Court of Massachusetts had enacted a special law against the keeping of Christmas, visiting with fine and imprisonment the transgressors who dared to celebrate that Popish festival. It was the misfortune and not the fault of the Brook Farmers that the Bethlehem Birthday was no more to them than Saint Jude’s day or the Feast of the Tabernacles.
In the Old Colonie Christmas was the one great day of all the year for children. We did not have the Christmas tree, but we had the Bethlehem manger in the Dutch Reform Church at the foot of the high pulpit and dominie Bogardus told us the story of the Birthday of Our Lord in simple words which we could all understand. Early in the morning we ran down to the sitting room where our stockings were hanging from the mantel shelf filled by Santa Claus with Christmas gifts, with more piled on the table for our friends and for poor families. That was what an effusive writer once called the “halcyon and vociferous” beginning of the day.
In the afternoon the boys went abroad bearing gifts, and the girls kept open house at home receiving visitors bringing more Christmas presents. In the evening, children’s parties were in order, with traditional games brought over from the old country by the Walloons. Old fashioned costumes were worn at these parties, Utrecht velvet being much in favor. My velvet suit proved available in more than one of our Brook Farm costume shows—only it was not worn at Christmas time.