Christmas time is here!

The holidays are in full swing so I thought I'd take the opportunity to share a couple of holiday tidbits I stumbled upon in old issues of The Wesson Enterprise of Wesson, MS. The first item ran in the Friday, December 20, 1918 issue. It is an excerpt from Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Tree" alongside a striking portrait of Santa Claus. I hope you can read the image, but if not you can catch the full text of it here.

The following year, The Wesson Enterprise's December 19, 1920 issue was full of little Christmas stories and advertisements featuring all the best Christmas gifts for you and yours (silk stockings! fancy waistbands! stoves!), but my favorite thing was this terrifying portrayal of "Merry Old St. Nick" that ran on the front page. The film was a little degraded, so I had a hard time reading the entire page, but it looks like he was next to a small article about naughty children. Scary Santa would certainly have had me minding my manners!