Santa arrives Christmas Eve in Omena
It was, and still is in Omena, a whole community affair, the coming of Santa on Christmas Eve. Even before the church was built in the early 1850’s, Rev. Dougherty, the Presbyterian missionary, always gave the Indian children a good time on Christmas Eve. They always had a huge Christmas tree at the Mission with hand made gifts for everyone. The girls prepared for Santa’s visit by hanging up the stockings they had knitted in the Mission sewing class. Most of the gifts were hand made until the 1880’s and even after. Skis made from barrel staves, wooden boats and trains, home made board games, heavy hand knit stockings for the girls, dolls and animals stuffed with feathers, cotton, or even straw or sawdust. Jump ropes, marbles, toy soldiers, rolling hoops and yo-yo’s and other small toys might have been found if there was money available to purchase them.
Families traveled through the snow to the church by horses and sleighs, by cutter and by two-horse sleighs in the 1860’s. In the bitter cold, soapstones were warmed and put in the sleigh with blankets and fur robes to help keep families warm during the trip. “The snow lay still and soft and deep over the village. Even the roadways stood undisturbed because there were no comings and goings of the school sleighs while the children were home on vacation”, Barbara Foltz Schneidewind remembers. Once they arrived at the little white church, the horses were tied up at a hitching post at the bottom of the hill.
Christmas Eve in the Church
Inside the church, the huge wood-burning stoves gave warmth and the people huddled close. “As a child I remember it looked like such a great big tree,” said Ernestine Freeland Johnson. The tree glowed with candles in their small metal snap-on holders. The children would all speak a piece. Often two of three would sing one of the Christmas carols. Chris Verdery was one of those singers one year in the 1940s and he remembers one Christmas Eve he stood in front of the church full of people with a few other children each singing one verse of “Good King Wenceslaus”…however he he was so nervous he forgot to stop at the end of the verse and sang all of the verses straight through leaving the other kids just standing there.
“After the program sleigh bells were heard in the distance, and no one who remembers those celebrations will ever forget the excitement as the bells grew louder and louder until Santa’s sleigh flew up the hill and stopped at the church steps. A giant Santa Claus would throw open the door with shouts of ‘Merry Christmas!’ as he ran up and down the aisles. Out of huge packs came boxes of nuts and candies for every single person in the over-crowded church,” Remembers Ernestine. It was not until years later that she discovered the jolly Santa of those years was an Indian, Bill Sands.