Alabama’s Christmas holiday legend
Posted on November 30, 2016 by bob in Features
Questions from people wanting information about one Alabama “first” are as predictable at the Alabama Department of Archives and History as the early arrival of Christmas decorations on store shelves. The questions first surfaced in the 1960s, and every year since then Archives researchers have fielded queries about how Alabama became the first state to make Christmas Day an official holiday. The problem is, there’s no documentation to back up that claim, no matter how much Alabamians may love to have a good reason to celebrate.
Debbie Pendleton, Assistant Director of Archives, hears the “first official Christmas” question every year.
Compounding the problem, hundreds of current internet listings and references in books and other publications dating back more than 50 years credit Alabama as the first state to make Christmas Day an official holiday in 1836.
“Every year we get the questions,” said Debbie Pendleton, Archives Assistant Director, “but in searches through four archives directors and numerous researchers, there is nothing to support that.”
Archival Researcher Norwood Kerr began fielding the questions in 1989. In 2014, Kerr did a summary of the research trail at Archives and at the Alabama Legislature where the late Jon Morgan, the unofficial Senate historian, worked to computerize historic legislative records, governor’s proclamations and the state Code.
Norwood Kerr holds a mislabeled bottle that boasts the historical claim. His extensive research disproved this off-repeated “first”.
“Research from the 1830s is spotty, but the legislative records are clear,” Kerr said. “There was no official act in 1836.”
The error is so common, however, that even souvenir bottles of lemonade from former Gov. Bob Riley’s 2003 inauguration sport a hangtag with the proclamation. One bottle Kerr saved for the Archives collection includes his handwritten “Not!” following the claim.
Among the earliest questions on the subject is a January 1964 letter sent to the Chamber
of Commerce in Montgomery from Frank L. Girardin of Virginia and forwarded to Archives Director Peter A. Brannon. Girardin wrote that he had obtained “documentary evidence” that Alabama was the first state “to proclaim Christmas Day a legal holiday.” He wanted to know the day, month and year when the Legislature legalized the claim.
The label with Kerr’s handwritten, tongue-in-cheek disclaimer.
Brannon wrote back to Girardin that while Archives had done two searches hunting the validation in the previous six months, the claim could not be verified, but noted that the Electrical Workers Journal of December 1960 contained an article with the claim. Brannon also wrote the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers which published the Electrical Workers Journal asking for the source of the claim.
In a Jan. 31, 1964, response from IBEW International President Gordon W. Freeman, Brannon learned that the source was a 1954 book, “The American Christmas, A Study in National Culture,” by James H. Bartlett.
Freeman ended his letter to Brannon with a good wishes: “We hope this information will help you to claim the legal Christmas holiday credit for your state.” No matter how courteous the good wishes in the IBEW letter, the book contained no footnotes or references of where the author got the claim that Alabama legalized Christmas first.
Fifty years later, as Kerr wrote his summary of the documenting process about the claim, researchers had a possible explanation, but nothing to validate the claim in the book.
“The only connection we found with 1836 in state law appears in the 1867 compilation of the Code of Alabama,” Kerr said.
In that 1867 document updating state laws of the era was a reference to an 1848 provision that made Dec. 25 a bank holiday for promissory notes which would then be due the day before or the day after, depending on the day of the week for Dec. 25. The promissory note reference was included in Section 1836 of the 1867 Code.
The book that likely started it all.
In a 2005 interview in The Decatur Daily, Morgan said the closest thing to legislative history that Alabama has for the era is in the daily Journals that recorded activities in the House and Senate. Christmas Day was a time of religious observation for lawmakers who traveled to the Capitol on horseback or by train and stayed until the legislative session was finished. If the time for the legislative session included Dec. 25, they did not go home, he said.
Page from “The American Christmas” book containing the erroneous claim.
While the misinformation continues to crop up, Kerr said at least the state has an explanation of how the misunderstanding may have occurred. A few years ago, Kerr said Archives acquired a copy of the book, “The American Christmas, A Study in National Culture,” — believed to contain the original error — to add to its collection on the subject.
Kerr pointed out the spirit that is part of Alabama during the Christmas season in the final paragraph of his documenting summary: “Alabama’s claim for primacy in legally recognizing Christmas is therefore not substantiated by the historical record. But as before and since 1836, the joy and generosity with which its citizens observe the holiday are rooted in sources other than state law.”
M.J. Ellington is a freelance writer in Montgomery whose longtime health and state government reporting and editing career included the Montgomery Advertiser, The Decatur Daily, Florence Times-Daily and The Anniston Star. She can be reached by email at ellingtonmj15@gmail.com.
