George Washington's Christmases

by



       M. Richard Maxson



       No one of our founding fathers have been more associated with Christmas than George Washington. What is remembered most is his leading his troops across the Delaware river in our country's first major military maneuver to outflank and surprise the enemy, but there are other Christmases that he remembered as he lived and it caused an extreme fondness for the holiday. His most vivid memories of Christmas are these:

• When young George was 8 years old in 1740, his home caught fire on Christmas Eve.
  

•  As a soldier in the British army, Washington spent Christmas Eve of 1753 in a remote outpost known as Murdering Town getting in a skirmish with local Indians, followed by a gift-giving trip to a local “Indian Queen.”
  

•  Always a wealthy man, Washington was known to splurge on diversions for his family and guests.  Once, during the war, he shelled out the cash to hire a band on Christmas Day.
  

• “The great Christmas night raid in 1776 would forever serve as a model of how a special operation – or a conventional mission, for that matter – might be successfully conducted.  No special mission by America’s first army has been more heralded than that which took place on Christmas night exactly 240 years ago. Speed of movement, surprise, maneuver, violence of action, and the plan’s simplicity were all key. And fortunately, the elements all came together.The fighting lasted about an hour. Four Americans had been killed and ten-times as many Hessians lay dead in the snow. Some 900 enemy prisoners were rounded up, along with weapons, ammunition, and other desperately needed stores. 
  

Days later when many enlistments were up, Washington ordered his commanders to form ranks. He then rode out before the troops, and appealed to their sense of duty as well as the critically of their fight:

“My brave fellows, you have done all I asked you to do, and more than could be reasonably expected, but your country is at stake … The present is emphatically the crisis which is to decide our destiny.”
 Washington held his little army together. Many of the continentals renewed their enlistments. They then capitalized on their Trenton victory with wins over the British at Trenton (the second go ‘round) on January 2, and Princeton on January 3.

•  But George Washington’s best Christmas was in 1783. Precisely 230 years ago today, he rode up to Mount Vernon to celebrate his first holiday at home after eight years of revolution.  He had resigned his commission just days before and was determined to surprise his family with his presence. They, in turn, surprised him with a feast that would almost make King George III feel at home. His wife, Martha, hoped that “from this moment [they] would grow old together, in solitude and tranquility.” That Christmas wish was not to be as the new Republic was to call on him again very soon.
  

Christmas in the young Republic was a different affair than we celebrate today.  There was no Santa Claus and no Christmas tree—a custom brought later by German immigrants. Gift-giving was not the focus—instead it was all about the family feast—a time to socialize and give faith-filled thanks for the year ending and the new one about to begin.
Christmas Day was primarily a religious holiday, though Washington was at best an occasional churchgoer, despite concerted efforts by subsequent evangelists to literally paint him as far more devout than he was in life. 
The Christmas season lasted more than a week and it was a time of celebration and general inebriation.  Washington gave his servants—and, yes, slaves—four days off to mark the holiday in broad Mount Vernon-wide celebration.  One of the largest distillers in the colonies, Washington supplied a gallon of whiskey as a modest gift even to his slaves and overcame his aversion to intoxication (which he once sonorously described as ‘sacrificing their reason to Bacchus’) to allow one valued employee four days of Christmas drunkenness, as enumerated in his contract.

•  In the winter of 1787, a surreal travelling salesman of sorts brought an Arabian camel up to Mount Vernon for the equivalent of $77 today to entertain and educate the extended Washington family.
  

• Overspending during the holidays is not a modern problem as the Christmas of 1788 found Washington writing his business partner, “I have never before felt the want of cash so severely as at present.” So if you’re assessing your own post-holiday finances with some anxiety, you can take comfort that Washington, however briefly, would have been able to relate.
  

•  In 1797, with less than two years left in his life, he wrote a note to the husband of Martha’s granddaughter which has served as a Christmas staple from that day forward. A wish from the original founding father: “We remain in Statu quo and all unite in offering you, & yours, the compliments of the season, and the return of many, many more, and happy ones.”