Radio Script #993

Little Talks on Common Things
December 23, 1973

For 26 years Little Talks on Common Things has devoted its broadcast on Christmas Sunday to the subject of Christmas. This year I want to open the Christmas broadcast on a slightly different note. Has it ever occurred to you to wonder how Christmas is celebrated in the tropics, where there is no cold and no snow, or how it seems farther south of the equator where Christmas occurs in mid-summer?

My daughter, Ruth Marriner Szopa, is wife of a Foreign Service career officer in the U.S. Department of State. They have been stationed in many parts of the world, including one tour of duty in southern Africa at Lourenco Marques, Mozambique, and another near the equator at Singapore. Lourenco Marques is 25 degrees south of the equator, about the same distance south of that line that St. Petersburg, Florida, is north of it. Singapore is actually north of the equator, but by only 2 degrees, so it is hot most of the year.

My daughter says that Christians have carried some observance of Christmas with them to most parts of the world. Americans, especially the families of government officials, adjust to local customs wherever they may be, so that in different parts of the world Americans, while holding as much as possible to their own traditional Christmas observance, do accommodate themselves to many local differences. Yet not only Americans, but other nationalities carry their own Christmas customs. For instance, people who are accustomed to have a Christmas tree, try to get some sort of tree every year, wherever they may be. In some parts of the world live trees fit for such use are very scarce; so in recent years many people have been using artificial trees, which have now also become so common in the U.S. that they are available in the chain stores. In Lourenco Marques my daughter had a real tree, but it was a scrawny cedar that had small resemblance to an American Christmas tree. In Singapore she got an artificial tree, and acquired for it beautiful decorations made in several Asian countries, notably Japan and Taiwan. Those decorations included a set of lights in the shape of tiny Chinese lanterns.

Lourenco Marques is the capital and largest city of one of the few countries in Africa still completely under foreign control. Like Angola on the African west coast, Mozambique on the shore of the Indian Ocean has been for 400 years a colony of Portugal, and the foreign population of Lourenco Marques is largely Portuguese. In that city there is very little outward sign of Christmas, no outdoor decorations, and only one or two stores with any Christmas displays. Since Christmas comes there in mid-summer, it is so hot that Europeans and Americans, who enjoy a holiday on December 25, spend it at the beach until time to go home for evening dinner. In most tropical countries servants are cheap, so the Christmas dinner is ready when folks return from the beach.

Wherever they are, most Americans try to find the ingredients for their customary Christmas dinner of turkey and fixings. In Lourenco Marques turkeys were almost unknown, but running a store there was a man who had been born in the U.S. and knew that Americans wanted turkey for Christmas. Every year he gave a live turkey to each of the half dozen American families in Lourenco Marques.

This is the way my daughter describes what happened to their first turkey in Southeast Africa. “For a week or ten days we had that turkey in our back yard. The cook fed it until the day before Christmas. He then fed the bird wine and killed it. The wine was to make the bird drunk and so completely relaxed, easy prey to the hatchet. The cook insisted that, if the turkey was quiet and relaxed when it was killed, the meat would be more tender. I do not know whether that is true, but anyhow I let the cook do things his way.”

My daughter found it impossible to get such vegetables as squash, pumpkin or sweet potatoes, but she managed to have white potatoes, onions and green beans to go with the turkey. In fact green beans were the only vegetable available the year round in Lourenco Marques. Dessert was caramel plum pudding. The explanation of its availability seemed to be the presence of many British-oriented Rhodesians and South Africans in Mozambique.

On her first Christmas in Lourenco Marques my daughter decided to have a red gelatin salad. Between the time it was taken from the refrigerator and the time it was put on the table, it had almost completely melted, the weather was so hot. She never tried that Christmas menu item anywhere in the tropics again.

Another thing common for an American Christmas had to be dispensed with in hotter climates – candles. They generate an amazing amount of heat for their size, and they melt so fast, even before they are lighted, that it is hard to make them stand straight.

Because of Singapore’s long history under British control, Americans find there more Christmas customs they are used to at home. Christmas hits that equatorial city in the monsoon season, when the rains make the air a bit cooler than at other times of the year. But the coolest day in Singapore is hot by our standards. Because of its long connection with England, Singapore makes much of Christmas. The stores are decorated and there are lots of outdoor decorations. One British custom there most Americans readily adopt because they like it. Each person at the dinner table is given a paper cracker of the kind used in our own country at childrens’ parties. This cracker is not something to eat but a kind of snapper – a short tube covered with crepe paper and a ruffle at each end. You pull a tab and the thing goes pop. Inside is sometimes a fortune slip or a small toy.

Unlike Lourenco Marques, Singapore could supply almost anything an American family could want for Christmas dinner. A large part of Singapore’s population is Chinese, and the Chinese New Year, lavishly celebrated wherever there are numerous Chinese inhabitants, usually comes soon after Christmas. The city decorations for the two celebrations tend to merge. Firecrackers play a large part in the Chinese New Year, and they are often heard also on Christmas Day.

In America the potted poinsettia has become the common houseplant for Christmas. In Lourenco Marques my daughter needed no such plant. In her yard there she had ten big poinsettia trees – not bushes, but real trees. At Christmas, however, they were not in bloom. They were covered with blossoms on another strictly American holiday, the Fourth of July, which comes in southern Africa’s mid-winter.

My daughter, in conclusion, makes this observation: “Even in the hottest climates, Christmas decorations always include some idea of cold and snow, even in countries where no one has ever seen a snowflake.”

Now, for the remainder of this broadcast, let’s bring Christmas back to the United States, but in a little different way than I have ever done before.

At the turn of the century nearly 75 years ago, many people in rural Maine depended heavily on the Sears Roebuck catalogue. I want to show you how, from that catalogue, could be selected Christmas gifts for all the family and all the relatives. Bear in mind that we are talking about a time between the Spanish American War and the death of Queen Victoria. Theodore Roosevelt, made famous by leading his Rough Riders up San Juan Hill, was Vice President and would soon succeed the assassinated William McKinley as chief executive of the nation. For him would be named the most popular toy of a generation, the Teddy Bear.

Consider yourself now a Maine resident of 1900. Do you want to give jewelry for Christmas? Sears can furnish you a ladies’ gold watch, the kind one pinned to a shirtwaist, for $6.65. A man’s hunting case watch, closing in both front and back, was $6.98. A vest chain to go with it, made of gold plate, was 87 cents. You could choose from a large assortment of rings with imitation gems for as little as $1.32. You could get real diamonds, a tiny 1/64 carat for as little as $4, and a big gorgeous diamond for $184. Gold pens with fancy holders were much in favor at $2.35. Fountain pens were then comparatively new,
but you could get one for as little as 42 cents.

All ladies love beautiful dishes. Why not give her a full 112 piece dining set for $12.45. Besides a dozen cups and saucers, and a dozen each of dinner plates, breakfast plates, pie plates and sauce dishes, it included two platters, two open and one covered vegetable dishes, a gravy boat and a covered butter dish.

Few homes had electric lights 75 years ago. Oil lamps provided the illumination. Sears made a specialty of an elegant parlor lamp for $4.45. The ad said: “This lamp will give light equal to 100 candlepower because of its extra large burner. A solid brass oil pot fits into the china base. Most parlor lamps have no oil pot, the oil being poured directly into the base. That soon gives it a greasy and ugly appearance.”

For the children Sears had an abundance of toys and games, priced at a range from ten cents to five dollars. Six pages of the catalogue were devoted to dolls. You could get a rag doll for 19 cents, or pay $3.65 for an elegant Dresden doll. Teddy Bears ranged from 75 cents to $2.38. A good pair of children’s ice skates cost 54 cents, and a pair of roller skates set you back only 38 cents.

There was opportunity also for children to buy gifts for others for very little money. A double page of the Sears catalogue offered numerous items all priced at two cents each. Your choice included, with scores of others, a bottle of ink, a horseshoe magnet, a mouse trap, a paring knife, an apple corer, a nutmeg grater, and a dozen blotters. If you want to get something for a dad who has everything, get him a gopher trap for eight cents.

And with that nostalgic reminder of a Sears Roebuck Christmas 75 years ago, we must say goodbye until next week.

Year: 1974