‘A hearty embrace and a Christmas kiss.’ Holiday traditions in antebellum Vicksburg

“What on earth is she doing now?” may be what Mahala Roach’s neighbors thought in December 1851.

Mrs. Roach, who lived on Depot Street in downtown Vicksburg, had a tree—probably a native cedar—taken into her house. Though others might have wondered, Mrs. Roach knew what she was doing. She was going to have a Christmas tree in her parlor.

What she didn’t know was that she was making history, perhaps setting a precedent: It was the first Christmas tree in Mississippi.

She explained where she got the idea: “I had read of the German custom and thought it would be fun to try a tree of my own for my children’s pleasure.”

Mahala Roach and Emma Balfour were two Vicksburg ladies who recording their Christmas traditions in the 1850s: Mrs. Roach in extensive diaries and Mrs. Balfour in a series of letters. Mrs. Balfour lived on Crawford Street, and no doubt, she and Mrs. Roach knew each other. Both were members of Christ Episcopal Church.

Mrs. Roach described the ornaments, most handmade, that she put on her tree: paper cornucopias, toys, red bows and ribbons, miniature fans, cookies and little baskets of candy.

Mrs. Balfour wrote of decorating the church rather than her house. She said her part was no trifle in handling evergreens and also the crosses, wreaths, and the star of the Epiphany. On top of it all, she was expected to be in charge of the New Year’s Eve supper that was for the benefit of the church.

She shouldn’t have done such a good job because in 1851, the minister asked her to take charge of the decorating, and both the rector and the bishop said they had never before seen a church so beautifully decorated.

The following Sunday, Mrs. Balfour received compliments from the pulpit. And the result? Jealousy. “A whole posse took dreadful offense…” Mrs. Balfour wrote.

Though he has gone by a number of names—Saint Nicholas, Chris Cringle and others—his appearance has been about the same, as shown in this 1924 postcard.

Gift giving was already a Christmas tradition, but each lady handled it differently. Mrs. Roach said she had always believed in Santa Claus. She wrote of the clear but cold Tuesday morning on Christmas Day in 1860 that her children raced to the parlor where they discovered (happily, I’m sure) that their stocking would not hold all their gifts. The girls were given dolls, doll house furniture and dishes, tiny gold rings and money. The boys’ gifts were red-topped boots, jumping jacks, Barlow knives and horns. All received candy and plenty of fireworks.

At the Balfour house, gifts were given not only at Christmas but also on New Year’s Day. One year, Mrs. Balfour made a coin purse for her husband and on another, he gave her a “beautiful, exquisite, work table … the most perfect thing of the kind I ever saw.” She admitted, though, that she liked most the two $50 California gold pieces that were inside the work table—“the most valuable part of the furniture.”

Then as today, money was a welcome gift. One year, Mrs. Balfour searched for and found “thirty little gold dollars! Of course, I am not expected to spend them for any ordinary thing!”

The Balfours always sent a box of gifts to her brother and his family in Faunsdale, Ala. It was a circuitous route of several rivers, the Gulf of Mexico and the last 20 miles by stagecoach for the gifts to arrive—often late—but Mrs. Balfour wrote that they were sent “with a hearty embrace and a Christmas kiss and love…”

For her family, Mrs. Balfour usually waited until Christmas Eve to go shopping for the children’s presents. One year, though it was snowing, she went anyway, and she said the downtown stores were stocked with items that were both thrilling, ingenious and beautiful. Nothing thrilled her more than a large doll “with everything that you could think of to form the most complete and extensive wardrobe of a lady, even to the corsets and garters,” along with capes, cloaks, even an opera hat—“…in short, everything that a lady could ask for—and all made in the most exquisite style.”

Despite the weather, Mrs. Balfour admitted that she looked forward to last-minute shopping downtown. “To tell the truth, I would be as unwilling to miss the sight as any child,” she wrote Dec. 24, 1853.

The gifts Mrs. Roach received were quite different from those given to Mrs. Balfour. On Christmas morning 1860, she called on friends, giving and receiving gifts. Among items given to her were books, two bottles of wine, a gold cross, a bouquet of violets and geraniums, and a basket of apples.

For dinner in mid-afternoon, the family sat down to a virtual feast, a meal that included oysters, turkey, ham, fish, Irish and sweet potatoes, beans, rice, bread, cakes, pies, custard, fruit, cheese and nuts.

In late afternoon, Mrs Roach visited friends again, no doubt taking gifts, and came home to “bright fires and a nice supper, and thus ended my Christmas day, which has been very pleasant, thanks be to my kind friends and to Him who has given me so many blessings.”

She concluded her diary entry with “Thanks be to God. Merry Christmas to us all.”

Gordon Cotton is the curator emeritus of the Old Court House Museum. He is the author of several books and is a renowned historian.

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