1914-12-19aga

“It is not to be expected that the Christmas of 1914 will be characterized by jovial abandon, the gaiety and hilarity that the glad season usually brings with it.”

          Hamilton Herald     December 19, 1914.

          Just six days before Christmas Day, 1914, the Hamilton newspapers were filled with many advertisements filled with Christmas gift suggestions. The downtown department stores all had very large ads, most with artwork featured Santa Claus and all manner of items adding to their festive flair.

          Efforts were well underway to be able to provide some relief to those in need over the Christmas season, and there were many Hamiltonians in need of such help as 1914 was coming to a close.

          In addition to those unemployed, or unemployable, to those with serious health issues and to those unnamed who for any number of other reasons were facing a bleak Christmas.

          Christmas 1914 also included a large group of those in need of relief, a group totally unknown during the Christmas season. That group included the wives and children of those city men who had abruptly left home during the heady days of August when the war in Europe began. Later, volunteers who may have been more deliberate in their decisions to go to the front, also left families without the usual source of income.

          In an editorial appearing on December 19, 1914, an editorial appeared in the Hamilton Herald under the headline, “A Subdued Christmas.”

In it, the editorialist took a look at why he felt that the holiday season, despite efforts by most to continue the gladsome traditions of old, was a very different yuletide season than Hamilton had ever known:

“There are too many reasons why this should be a more sober Christmas for most of us than any within memory.

“With our empire in peril, with half the world at war, with each day claiming its ghastly toll of dead and wounded by the thousand, with so many friends waiting to be transported to the firing line, with the cloud of industrial and business depression still lowering, it would be strange if the roseate hues of Christmas were not shot with gray.

“And yet there are compensations. The world travail and the local troubles, while they must subdue the Christmas hilarity somewhat, ought to, and probably will, stimulate the growth of that true Christmas charity without which Christmas is no more than Yuletide.

“If there is more destitution than usual, there is all the more opportunity for the exercise of brotherly kindness. The greater the need of those who have not, the richer the blessing to be gained in giving by those who have.

“For the latter, this no time for stinting. Let those who must perforce economize be more than ordinarily prudent, but all who can afford to spend freely ought to do so now as a matter of public duty as well as private choice. Generous, even lavish, spending at this time is good for the whole community. It puts life into trade; it enables tradesmen to meet their obligations; it provides employment for many who otherwise lie in unprofitable idleness; it makes it easier to take a cheerier view of the future.

“ A few weeks ago the prospects for Christmas were anything but bright, but business has been picking up lately, and it would not be surprising if in the week ‘jes’ afore Christmas’ the holiday trade were to witness the customary brisk and busy scenes in the stores of the city.

“ The Herald today contains in its advertising columns no end of hints to Christmas shoppers who would do well to make use of them.”¹

¹ “ A Subdued Christmas.”

Hamilton Herald     December 19, 1914