Christmas in the West

Joan McGrath is a Toronto Board of Education library consultant.

This handsome collection of Yuletide odds and ends dates back as far as 1843, with nostalgia for the “good old days” as its pervasive theme. The writers, especially those of the early fur-trading days, were exiles in an unwelcoming wilderness. Some meant to return to “civilization” one day, others intended to stay and make new lives in the New World; but at Christmas, all cast longing eyes backward to the holidays they had known in the milder surroundings of “the old country.”

Nostalgic as they undoubtedly were, all generously did their best to sound cheerful and content in their letters home. Their descriptions of Christmas feasts and makeshifts in sod huts or snowbound army encampments demonstrate the triumph of the human spirit over adversity. Few people of today, whatever their circumstances, will be as hard-pressed and isolated as even the luckiest of the often anonymous writers and artists of this anthology; but none will surpass the spirit of Goodwill to Men that is captured in this seasonal salute to the warm-hearted and open-handed Westerners of yesterday.