...but wooden pyramids covered with evergreen branches were decorated with candles.
This might explain a passage in a letter my grandfather wrote to my grandmother before they were married. He worked in the iron mines near Clifton Forge, VA. and wrote home
on Dec. 5, 1886 that the " boys and girls are fixing to have a Xmas Ladder for their Sunday School, making a big effort for it. I will have to bring you something for your Xmas Ladder.
Then after Xmas he wrote that he had got a present on the Xmas Ladder that one of the local young ladies had picked out for him.
In another letters he wrote about getting her a New Years gift, and I thought, perhaps, Christmas was religious and New Years was for giving gifts.
My mother continued to put dimes in our shoes on New Years up through the 1930s (delivered by Kris Kringle) although none of my friends had ever heard of that.
I have been wondering if it took a while for the new customs to work their way up river from Williamsburg to the Piedmont and Blue Ridge Mountains.Charles Minnegrode introduced the custom of decorating trees in Williamsburg, Virginia in 1842.
Louise in Central Virginia
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