Wishing you peace, hope of first Christmas

Local columnist

link Karl Terry

At the first Christmas in Portales, Santa Claus showed up in cowboy boots, riding a grey donkey.

That’s right, he didn’t exactly fit the description that Clement Clark Moore had portrayed 76 years earlier in his poem “The Night Before Christmas.” But it was 1899 in Middle of Nowhere, NM and Santa had to make do just like everyone else.

Never mind that his hat and coat looked like they might have been borrowed from Frank Boykin. St. Nick even sounded a lot like Frank. The children in attendance didn’t care because he had a tow sack full of presents.

Imagine that scene of a community Christmas in the newly built train depot at the end of Main Street — the only building big enough for the celebration. People had been getting ready for months for that night.

Some of the men had made a long trip by wagon to the rim of the Caprock near Tucumcari to fetch a big Christmas tree. The women popped corn and strung it to hang on the tree. They decorated it with apples and candy canes and made candleholders to attach to the tree.

I’m so thankful that this Christmas story was preserved through the interview of one of the attendees, Ora Wood, by her daughter-in-law Rose Powers White and written down by her daughter Ruth White Burns.

If those ladies hadn’t documented the festivities we wouldn’t know about the joy that a sack full of fruit, nuts and candy could give to folks scraping by on beans and biscuits. We wouldn’t know how everyone pitched in to make the celebration special and we wouldn’t know how long the trip to town from homesteads and ranches was in that day.

Ruth Burn’s book, “A Man Was a Real Man In Them Days,” sums the mood up well.

“After the festivities were over, some families drove home in their wagons and buggies, some spent the night with friends or at the hotel, and some camped out in the nearby wagon yard with their teams.

“According to several of the old-timers, this was one of the brightest spots in their sometimes hard and dreary lives: a Christmas so full of hope and joy and goodwill, that it would probably not be surpassed for the rest of their days.

“This Christmas seems to illustrate the character and good will of the first settlers. They did not have much, but they were ready and willing to share what they did have.”

Christmas gatherings of all sorts on the High Plains have held pretty true to that early scene over the last century. The power of the season and the hope of the Savior has a way of making us all put aside our worries, our differences and our fears and just enjoy being with friends and family.

This year I hope we all experience the peace and hope of the first Christmas — the one in Portales and more importantly the one in Bethlehem.

— Karl Terry writes for Clovis Media Inc. Contact him at: [email protected]