The Ghost of Christmas Past
If we could travel back to when O’Shea Builders’ founder -- John O’Shea (Bud’s grandfather) - was a kid, we’d experience a holiday different from today’s.
Between 1869 and 1874, or from the time John was born until he was five, Christmases weren’t the five-week, all-encompassing, mega holiday they are now. While super organized folks bought their gifts beforehand, many waited until Christmas day.
“By an early hour in the morning, the streets were filled with people, each one engaged in the pursuit of pleasure…the stores were full and running over with customers,” reported Springfield’s December 26, 1874 Daily Illinois State Register. The stores were packed through the night.
According to the city’s newspapers, gift options included books (in 1873 the Illinois State Journal recommended “The Life of Daniel Webster” and “The Pioneer Boys”), ornamental hair jewelry braided and mounted, an iron axle cart or wagon for boys, and trimmed hats or bonnets for females. C. Wolf and Company, on the west side of the downtown square, promoted furs for women and children: “mink, seal, ermine, marten and lynx.” If that was too much, Harts store advertised “writing desks, portfolios, and stationery” while C. M. Smith & Co. had “handkerchiefs and silk ties.”
For some families, perhaps the Catholic O’Sheas, Christmas day began very early with church. There were two Catholic churches in Springfield in 1869, the German Catholic church – St. Peter and St. Paul, and the Immaculate Conception at Seventh and Monroe. The latter offered “grand high mass at five a.m. on Christmas Day, low mass at eight a.m., and solemn mass and benediction at 10:30 a.m.,” according to the Journal in 1873.
Christmas dinner seemed as important then as today, but the foods were wildly varied. Along with the traditional turkey, minced meat, and cranberries, local stores and restaurants offered beef tongue, oysters, roast coon, prairie chicken, quail, and bear meat. Thankfully for those with a sweet tooth, candies and nuts were prominently advertised.
Some Christmas dinners had loud finishes. In 1874, the Register stated “fire crackers, Colt’s revolvers and horse pistols made music in the air last night.” That must have hurt the head of at least one Christmas reveler; the Register also reported that “a very discouraged individual stretched out at full length, decorated the post office floor last evening. Too much Christmas.”