A Treasury of African American Christmas Stories

by Bettye Collier-Thomas

  Fanny May’s mother was young, so she clapped her thin brown hands together almost as Fannie May would have done. “And, Billie Boy, I can make the little sheets and pillow cases and tack a comfort. I’m so glad you thought of such a beautiful thing to do. I know it will be just fine, because you made Fannie May’s little rocker so nice.”

  “Then, too,” said Fannie May’s father, his face all smiles, “you know Granny Hope’s a powerful hand for molasses cookies and molasses candy, and we’ve got plenty of sorghum laid by, and if I can get hold of a few walnuts for the candy, I guess Fannie May’ll feel pretty good after all, except for the doll and I don’t see how we can manage that unless one drops down from the skies somewhere.”

  “Like the Babe of Bethlehem,” sighed the mother. “Well, I’ll do all I can to make Ella Virginia presentable.”

  Night after night found Fannie May’s father sitting up after a hard day’s work at the factory, working on the cradle-bed. Sometimes he would fall asleep at his task, but when he did, he always got up an hour earlier in the morning and made up for it. He had to hide it at Granny Hope’s, next door, to keep Fannie May from knowing. At last it was finished, and when he brought it home after Fannie May was asleep, Fannie May’s mother was too happy for anything. “Oh, how could you make such a beautiful, beautiful bed, all by yourself?” she said.

  For the cradle bed was wonderfully carved with the figure of an angel at the head, and it had nice even slats and rockers just like a true bed.

  “It is big enough for a real baby, sure enough,” said the mother.

  Then they began to plan again about the cookies and candy. Yes, Granny Hope would make them. Fannie May’s mother had done her more than one good turn when she was down with her back, and they needn’t bother one mite about the walnuts, for she had some nice, fresh ones her son had sent in from the country, and she would make walnut taffy like she used to make at the “Big Houses” at Christmas times, before the War. Of course she meant the Civil War that freed the American slaves.

  Fannie May knew nothing of these delightful doings, but she was more cheerful than she had been for she was busy making presents for others. Out of an old red flannel shirt Granny Hope gave her, she made a needle case for her mother and stitched the edges with coarse black thread and a pen wiper for her father; then she made two iron holders for Granny and covered them with some scraps of ticking, and for Prudie Ann and May Bell she made the dearest little pin cushions. Did you know there was so much Christmas in a discarded red flannel shirt? Of course there was magic in Fanny May’s little fingers, the magic of love, and we can all have that if we work hard enough for it.

  You remember I told you that everybody liked Fannie May because of her pleasant disposition. Well, Prudie Ann and May Bell and the day school teacher and the Sunday school teacher all missed the bright eyed little one with the sunny smile, and when the children told the teachers how Fanny May’s mother was sick, and Santa Claus wouldn’t be able to bring Fanny May not a speck of Christmas, both of the teachers felt so sorry and said to themselves that something must really be done about it, for it really wasn’t right for a little girl who minded her parents and teachers and did her work well at home and school and seldom ever pouted, should have to go without Christmas. The day teacher, a young woman who had struggled very hard to get through school herself, went to work that very day and began to crochet Fanny May the dearest little blue hood, just like all the fortunate little girls were wearing that winter and then she ripped up a blue skirt that she had outgrown, cleaned and pressed it and made Fannie May a little blue cape to match the hood and bought and sewed three shiny gold buttons down the front. The Sunday-school teacher, who was a very busy woman with a big family of her own, took time and went to see Fannie May’s mother, to learn just exactly what Santa Claus might be expected to do for Fannie May at Christmas. They had a nice visit, then the teacher saw the superintendent and gave him the size of the little girl’s shoes, and he said the Sunday-school Santa Claus would be happy to put a nice new pair of shoes on [the Christmas tree] for Fannie May, together with the regular treat, and the teacher thanked him and bought a pair of stockings to go with the shoes, and they [hung] them on the Christmas tree with two hundred pink, red, yellow, white and blue bags of candy and nuts.

  Christmas Eve night, the day teacher, who had the [hood] and cape all done [and] tied up in nice, smelly paper, with a blue ribbon, came by for Fannie May to go to the Christmas tree. It was the first time she knew she was going to get to go.

  “Oh! Oh!” she fairly screamed. “Going to the Christmas Tree! Going to the Christmas Tree! Got a new blue hood; got a new blue cape.” She danced up and down with joy.

  Her mother and day teacher were happy too. By and by, here came Prudie Ann and May Bell to see if Fannie May could go, and Oh, she could, and her silky braids looked so pretty under the new hood, and the cape was just right, and Oh, wasn’t it just a beautiful world after all—a beautiful Christmas world!

  At the church a wonderful Christmas tree sparkled with candles and gifts, and the superintendent told of the Babe of Bethlehem, in whose honor the gifts were made. There was a concert, two dialogues, songs and speeches about Christmas. The day teacher held the children spellbound with “The Night Before Christmas,” and at the close, the gifts were distributed. Fannie May got a pair of shoes, stockings, a pink bag of candy, and a little china doll, jointly contributed by her two little friends. How happy she was when she took her things home, but when she rushed up to the door she found that mamma was not well enough to be disturbed, and that she was to sleep next door at Granny Hope’s and her father added that Granny said she had better hang up her stocking for she had heard that Santa Claus might come by after all.

  Fanny May didn’t really mind staying with Granny, but she would rather have stayed home on this particular night to talk over all that had taken place. Over at Granny Hope’s she snuggled under the warm Irish chain quilt and peeped out every little while to see if she could see any sign of Santa Claus, but alas, the Sandman got her and it was bright day when she heard Granny stirring, and jumping out of bed cried quickly, “Christmas Gift! Granny, Christmas Gift!”

  “Oh, you caught me, did you, you little Booger,” said Granny, and gave her a big red apple and then Fannie May rushed to the fireplace, for there was the stocking she had hung up the night before, fat and mysterious looking. In it she found molasses cookies, candy and a ginger-bread man.

  Fannie May rushed into her clothes and hurried over home.

  But what was that standing in the middle of the kitchen floor? A cradle-bed! The prettiest you ever saw, big enough for Ella Virginia, or a live baby and it had a mattress and pillows and the daintiest comforter imaginable.

  “Oh, papa! Oh, mamma!” she cried, rushing into the other room, but she stopped still for her mother was taking medicine from a glass her father held and Granny, who had come in another way was holding something in her arms—something that looked like a doll—something tiny and brown and wrinkled, but Oh, so very dear—something that you loved the very minute you laid eyes on it, and wanted to hold it in your arms.

  “Oh, mamma, it isn’t a live baby, is it?” cried the happy child, as Granny laid it in her arms for a wee moment.

  “Yes, it is your Christmas Gift—your own, dear, little baby brother! Will you let him lie in your cradle-bed when he is sleepy?”

  “Oh, mamma! Oh, daddy!” cried Fannie May; “I thought I wasn’t going to have any Christmas at all, and it’s the best Christmas in the whole world, isn’t it? Didn’t God give us a good Christmas this time?”

  ELSIE’S CHRISTMAS

  Salem Tutt Whitney

  Salem Tutt Whitney was born in Logansport, Indiana, in 1869. The oldest child of a struggling itinerant minister, at an early age he quit school for a short period of time to work. Eventually he graduated from Shortridge High School in Indianapolis and then attended DePauw University, where he studied for the ministry. Except for brief empl
oyment as the minister of a church in Titusville, Pennsylvania, Whitney enjoyed a distinguished career as a stage performer, playwright, producer, comedian, poet, and journalist. His first stage performance was in 1895, singing bass with the Puggsley Brothers’ Tennessee Warblers, a minstrel company.

  In 1899, Whitney formed a company, the Oriental Troubadours, an aggregation of twenty-eight people and a nine-piece band. He toured the country with this group for seven years. In 1901, he opened his first musical comedy, The Ex-President of Liberia. Whitney wrote the book and music, staged the entire show, arranged the numbers, and designed the costumes. His brother, J. Homer Tutt, was his understudy for this production. The two of them later made the name Tutt and Whitney famous. In 1905, he joined the S. H. Dudley Smart Set Company, and in 1907, Homer and Salem joined the Black Patti’s Troubadours as Whitney and Tutt, the beginning of the famous combination. A couple of years later, in 1909, they organized the second company of the original Smart Set Company, and in 1916, they gained control of the company and renamed it Whitney and Tutt’s Smarter Set Company.

  Between 1909 and 1922, Whitney wrote a big two-act musical comedy for every theatrical season. From 1910 to 1914, the Smart Set was one of only four major black road companies in the field. Whitney and Tutt were a key link in the black show business world between the famous Williams and Walker team, and Black Patti to Irvin Miller and Billy King.

  In “Elsie’s Christmas,” published by the Indianapolis Freeman in 1912, Salem Tutt Whitney tells the traditional story of Christmas and the role of Santa Claus. He touches upon a number of issues that confronted African American families by showing that the love between black men and women can be strained by economic and political forces outside of their control. He also emphasizes the problems single women have when they must support their children on their own. Thus Whitney argues for black men and women to be more sensitive and understanding of each other’s needs.

  “Elsie’s Christmas” could be set at any time and in any place. However, Elsie’s request for a doll with “the pretty brown face and Indian hair,” suggests that the story occurs at some point between 1908 and 1912. Although so-called Negro dolls were available during the 1890s, most were produced by white factories and had what some considered “uncomely and deformed features.” In 1908, the National Baptist Convention set the pace for production of “Negro Doll Babies for Negro Children.” The movement for black dolls was one indication of the growing African American race consciousness so evident during the first and second decades of the twentieth century, which became full-blown in the New Negro Movement of the 1920s. Although dolls with brown faces appeared, they all had straight hair or what Elsie calls “Indian hair.”

  In addition to reinforcing the theme of race pride, Whitney, in referring to the two female characters, Virgie and Elsie, as Mrs. Waterman and “little lady,” subtly introduces the issue of respect for black womanhood. White Americans frequently addressed black men and women by their first names or called them “girls,” “boys,” “aunties,” and “uncles.” To negate this pattern of disrespect, blacks would not use their first names but would refer to themselves only as Mr. or Mrs. with their surname.

  Elsie’s mother, Mrs. Waterman, calls her daughter “little lady” as a pet name. As Whitney explains in the story, Mrs. Waterman “had also explained to her [Elsie] the full significance of the word ‘lady,’ and how important it was for her daughter to have all the requisites of a lady.” This statement and the use of the term suggests that black women were concerned about the image of black womanhood, an issue used by Ida Wells Barnett and the National Association of Colored Women, to thwart the proliferation of negative images of African American women, who were frequently depicted by white leaders and the white press as being women of loose morals. Mrs. Waterman stressed to Elsie that if one is to be considered a lady she must conduct herself in that manner, meaning she must be refined and have “gentle manners” and must receive the “homage or devotion” of her husband or lover.

  Finally, in the best of African American traditions, the story speaks of the power of prayer. Elsie was taught that if she “prayed to the Good Man for anything I really wanted or needed, and believed that He would give me what I asked for, He’d do it?” In the depths of slavery, when there seemingly was no hope, enslaved men and women also believed that God would answer their prayers. God answered Elsie’s and Mrs. Waterman’s prayers because they had been good and had faith.

  Elsie’s Christmas

  Mamma, how old is Santa Claus?”

  Mrs. Waterman was making a melancholy inspection of her clean but meagerly furnished kitchen. She turned at the sound of Elsie’s voice and looked at her youthful questioner. She noted the perfect oval of the little girl’s face, the healthy color, the beautiful coal-black eyes and the dark brown hair curling rebelliously away from the intelligent forehead. As Mrs. Waterman made this rapid inventory of Elsie’s charms, her face became suffused with a smile of motherly pride, in which love, tenderness, and solicitude were equally blended.

  In the year that they had been alone, Mrs. Waterman had never grown used to Elsie’s puzzling and startling questions. Elsie’s mind seemed unusually matured for a girl six years of age. No matter how trivial the questions, Mrs. Waterman always considered them seriously, knowing that intelligent answers would help develop her daughter’s intellect. So now, as she looked at Elsie’s expectant face, she pondered her answer.

  “Santa Claus is very old,” she answered gravely; “very, very old, little Lady.”

  “Little Lady” was the pet name Mrs. Waterman had given her daughter. She had also explained to her the full significance of the word “lady,” and how important it was for her daughter to have all the requisites of a lady. Elsie was very proud of the name.

  “Is he as old as papa?” asked Elsie, after a childish attempt to compute the years necessary to make one very, very old.

  At the word “papa” a pained expression came into Mrs. Waterman’s face, but it was only momentary and passed unnoticed by Elsie.

  “Very much older than your—papa,” Mrs. Waterman answered, thoughtfully.

  “I guess he must be older than grandpop, too,” mused Elsie; “his hair looks whiter and his beard longer in the pictures I see of him. Did anybody ever see Santa Claus when he was little?”

  “Yes,” answered the mother.

  “Who?” eagerly questioned Elsie.

  “It is a story, little Lady,” replied Mrs. Waterman.

  “Oh! little mother, tell it to me, won’t you, please?” pleaded Elsie.

  Mrs. Waterman, glad of the opportunity to rest, seated herself in a chair near the window. Elsie climbed eagerly upon her knee, threw her chubby arms affectionately about her mother’s neck and kissed her full upon the lips. With all the infinite love of a mother showing in her face, made radiant by the holiest of passions, Mrs. Waterman pressed the child to her bosom.

  The winter’s sun, like a golden globe of unquenchable fire, was sinking slowly below the horizon; its yellow rays smiled through the window and formed a halo around the little girl’s head. A flood of tenderness swelled in the mother’s bosom, bringing tears to her eyes, and she knew how the Virgin Mary must have felt when first she gazed upon her infant Jesus.

  “Why do we celebrate Christmas?” asked Mrs. Waterman.

  “Because Christ our Savior was born upon that day,” promptly responded Elsie.

  “More than two thousand years ago,” began Mrs. Waterman, “Melchior, Gaspar, and Balthazar, three very wise men, had heard that Jesus was to be born in Bethlehem of Judea. Melchior was a Greek, Gaspar was a Hindu, and Balthazar was an Egyptian. They lived very far apart, but each was told in a dream that he should see the Savior. Their hearts were filled with joy and thanksgiving, for they had never thought to have the privilege of gazing upon their Savior in person. The Spirit of God guided each one to a common meeting place: from there they were told to follow a star which was set in the heavens to guide them
.

  “Without doubt or misgiving they followed the star until it stopped over a stable in the little town of Bethlehem. ‘This must be the place; we will enter,’ said they. Trembling with hope and fear they entered, and there they saw the baby Jesus, sleeping in its mother’s arms.

  “The wise men knelt down and worshiped Jesus. Then they laid at his feet costly presents of frankincense, myrrh, incense, gold and precious jewels. It was then that Santa Claus was born. Santa Claus is the Spirit of Thankfulness that finds expression in gifts, and it will live so long as Christ shall reign upon earth and fill the hearts of men and women with His goodness and love.”

  “Does he always come to good little girls and good little boys?” asked Elsie, after she had thought awhile over the story.

  “Always,” answered Mrs. Waterman, slowly.

  “Haven’t I been a good little girl, little mother?” said Elsie wistfully.

  “No little girl could have been better, my Lady,” replied the mother, and again a pained expression crept into her face.

  “I hope Santa will bring me the doll with the pretty brown face and Indian hair that I asked him for in my letter.” Then a happy look came to Elsie’s eyes. “Do you remember, little mother, you said if I prayed to the Good Man for anything I really wanted or needed, and believed that He would give me what I asked for, He’d do it?”

  “I remember, little lady,” answered Mrs. Waterman.

  “Well,” continued Elsie. “I want my papa very, very much, and I want a dolly, but mostly I want my papa, and I’m going to ask the Good Man to tell Santa to bring them to me tonight, so they will be here tomorrow for Christmas.”

  After stating her resolution, Elsie slipped down from her mother’s knee and prepared for bed, filled with the happy anticipation that floods the hearts of children the world over on Christmas Eve.