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Colonial Christmas

Santa comes to the Cape at Christmas time now just as merrily as to any other part of the country, and the Cape Cod kids keep as close a watch and are as impatient, too, as other kids for the time of his arrival.

This is all to the good. Think of the first Cape Cod kids whose dads never put on a red suit with cotton trimmings, and a pillow inside its waist to make the traditional “round little belly!”.

Christmas Eve was like any other eve, and their dads would have gone into the hoosegow pronto had they tried to observe it. Keeping Christmas in those times was keeping a corruption, which the somber settlers were determined not to do. For many years, the observance of the festival was outlawed in Massachusetts. Now, it is as enthusiastically celebrated here as though it had always been observed on the Cape.

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