On Dec. 21, 1924, the Portland Sunday Telegram published a festive spread about how children were celebrating the season. Click on the image to go to the full page on newspapers.com

There was a lot happening in Maine in December 1924: Christmas pageants, Hanukkah festivals, caroling through the streets and visits with Santa Claus.

Shops were decorated for the season and stocked with everything from silk scarves to mechanical toys and fancy ribbon candy. Schoolchildren adorned their classrooms with tinsel and ornaments and rehearsed songs to perform for their parents.

It was the middle of the Roaring Twenties and Mainers were in the mood to celebrate.

With a world war and deadly global influenza epidemic firmly in the rearview mirror, the nation’s economy was surging and people had money to spend on household appliances, cars and clothing. Radios were becoming increasingly popular, with people tuning in to listen to news and entertainment from around the world. A host of new consumer products hit the market: Wheaties cereal, Bit-O-Honey candy bars, Dum Dums, iodized table salt and Kleenex facial tissues.

Popular children’s toys included Raggedy Ann dolls, teddy bears, Crayola crayons, chemistry sets, Lincoln Logs, Tinkertoys and yo-yos. The holiday season kicked off with the first Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City.

A look through the archives of Maine newspapers provides an enticing glimpse at the holiday merriment 100 years ago.

PARTY TIME

The elementary schools around Portland went all in on their holiday celebrations.

A full page of the Dec. 21 Portland Sunday Telegram was devoted to describing the festivities. The spread was topped with photos of local children under the banner headline “Jolly Old St. Nicholas We’re Sure You Can’t Resist Us.”

The Morrill School held a Christmas party in every classroom “with games and stories and Christmas stories and Christmas songs and best of all ice cream for all.” Fifth-graders watched stereopticon slides illustrating Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” and the kindergarten room was “especially attractive.”

“The tree is ablaze with crystal and silver trimmings. After greetings to the parents and guests, the children told the real Christmas story and sang their songs about the Little Christ Child,” the newspaper reported. “Gifts that the children had made to give away, and gifts that they contributed for some needy families, were then distributed and after a meal with ice cream and animal crackers all went home most happy.”

At the West School, students put on a Christmas program featuring poems, songs and readings. There were piano solos and an instrumental performance of “The Desert Caravan” featuring students playing mandolins, violins and the piano. Two sixth-grade classes banded together to put on a Christmas play titled “Santa and the Dragon,” with a Santa, a woodcutter, witches and fairies, dolls for various countries and a knight named St. George.

Santa Claus visited six schools across the city – his arrival was “a gala occasion” everywhere he went.

“The very most elaborate party given for Santa was at the Oakdale School where hosts of parents came in, and where Santa’s arrival was heralded by loud honkings of automobile horns which sent the children rushing to the window. When he drove up in state with his pack just crammed with good things for small boys and girls pandemonium broke loose, albeit a teacher-regulated pandemonium,” the paper reported. “Here and at every other school which Santa Claus visited he distributed rolls of life-savers, one for each child, and the munching and crunching of these goodies accompanied the farewells to the Christmas saint.”

LETTERS TO SANTA 

Hazel Fillmore asked her letter to Santa to be read on the radio in 1924. Click on the image to go to the full page on newspapers.com

A young Portland girl’s attempt to get her letter to Santa drew the attention of the Sun-Journal. In a story published on Dec. 18, the newspaper detailed how a letter by Hazel Fillmore of Hanover Street was read by Mr. Messter, the WCBR Portland Radio Exposition announcer.

“The up-to-date child no longer depends on the slowness and the uncertainty of mail. He establishes direct communication to the Saint of Christmas thru radio,” the newspaper wrote.

Hazel used the letter to introduce Santa to her new baby brother, Philip Calvin Fillmore (“we love him very much”), and detail the Christmas wishes of her other siblings. Everett, 2, and Helen, 3, both wanted rocking horses, while 5-year-old Millard and 7-year-old Warren wanted horns and drums. Iona, 8, asked Santa for a sewing box and a sleeping doll.

“As for me, I want a pair of bedroom slippers and a Bible, and if it is not asking too much, a sleeping doll,” she wrote. “Dear Santa Claus, Mamma is in bed sick but I want you to please answer over the radio tomorrow night. My papa will tune in for me.”

FESTIVAL OF LIGHTS 

The Jewish communities in Portland and Biddeford celebrated Hanukkah starting on Dec. 21.

In Portland, the YWHAA Intermediates and Juniors prepared an evening of musical numbers and refreshments for the first night of Hanukkah, the Portland Sunday Telegram reported.

“One of the most important features of the evening will be the Chanukah pageant, written by Miss Alice Modes, in which about 10 girls take part and which will prove very interesting. The pageant is a sketch of the history of Chanukah and the scenes will be very pretty, the girls in their flowing white gowns, each carrying one of the letters that form the word Chanukah. Musical numbers will follow and refreshments will be served.”

The Biddeford-Saco Journal wrote about the “impressive services” given by Rev. Lipin at the synagogue on Bacon Street in Biddeford and printed a detailed history of the holiday.

“The feast of lights as it is sometimes called was celebrated with elaborate exercises at the synagogue on Bacon Street at sunset Sunday,” the story said. “One candle was lighted and today, two, with three tomorrow, four the next day, five the next, six the following day, seven on the next day, and eight on the eighth day.”

Ads in the Biddeford-Saco Journal on Dec. 22, 1924, detailed the food and gifts offered in local shops. Click on the image to go to the full page on newspapers.com

GIFTS GALORE

The 1920s ushered in an advertising boom and local shop owners took advantage of the trend to market their holiday season offerings.

In newspapers across southern Maine, shops advertised all manner of gifts – from slippers to kitchen appliances to custom-made suits. Toys, of course, got top billing in many ads.

The Biddeford Bargain House on Main Street had a lot of gift ideas: child’s carpet sweeper, 35 cents; little horse rocker, 35 cents; trains 50 cents to $2.50; electric toasters for $3.95; 42-piece dinner set for $7.95; dolls 10 cents to $7.50; mechanical toys 25 cents to $2.98; solid maple desks and chairs, $4.98.

Over at Mrs. S.E. Ladd on Main and Water streets in Saco, the shop offered “Interesting Christmas gift for women” – most of them involving silk. In stock were sweaters, silk underwear, silk boudoir caps, silk scarfs, underarm bags, silk bloomers, corset covers, bath robes, silk mules, silk hosiery, silk ribbons and silk blouses.

Just two days before Christmas, ads in the Evening Express targeted Westbrook shoppers looking for last-minute gifts. At the Emile Begin clothing shop, “Gifts for Him” included shirts, ties, armbands, bathrobes, umbrellas, mufflers and cuff links. Over on Bridge Street, Carr’s Shoe Store offered ladies’ and men’s Christmas slippers for 59 cents to $3.50 in “all kinds and colors.”

LaFond & Co. invited shoppers to “come to our Toyland on the 2nd floor” for last-minute gifts, including silk hosiery, silk umbrellas, rubber aprons, muslin underwear, baby crib sheets and leather pocketbooks.

WHAT PEOPLE WERE EATING

When it came time for holiday meals, local markets were ready with everything people needed.

The Andrews & Horigan Co. grocery store on Main Street in Biddeford had Christmas turkeys, ducks, geese and chickens, “all fresh killed and fancy stock” ranging from 42 to 48 cents. There were also California and Florida oranges, jumbo pecans, cranberries, squash and all the vegetables needed for dinner. For dessert, 2-pound boxes of ribbon candy were just 43 cents.

“We have everything to complete your Christmas dinner,” read the ads for Bibeau Bros., The Pure Food Market, at the corner of Alfred and Jefferson Streets in Biddeford. Their offerings included extra fancy turkeys direct from the farm, native geese, ducks, grapefruit, apples and nuts.

The grocers encouraged people to “shop early and avoid disappointment.”

To help readers expand their holiday menus, the Biddeford-Saco Journal published a cooking column called “The Kitchen Cabinet” that offered recipes for yuletide goodies, including butterscotch Spanish cream and snowballs made out of sponge cake.

In Portland, ads for Spear Folks Candy at 495 Congress St. – famous for Needhams and caramels – highlighted its “splendid gift packages for $1. There were also candy-filled cedar chests, ribbon candy, novelties, hard candies and stocking fillers ready to be packaged for shoppers.

“Remember, everybody likes candy!” the ad read.

Copy the Story Link