Editor’s note: In 1982, Brewer resident Doris Lyford wrote this column for The Weekly Journal about the year her school had a Christmas tree. Born Doris Lawrence on Dec. 12, 1893, in Bangor, Mrs. Lyford was 89 years old when her reminiscence was published. She passed away in 1984.

I remember having a Christmas tree at school just once. After much coaxing on our part, the current teacher gave in to our pleas. We always had a Christmas program when the mothers and close relatives came to see us perform. This year we were going to have a Christmas tree at long last.

The year of which I write, I remember our teacher was Mrs. Edna Mills. She was one of the nicest and smartest of our list of teachers. She was very strict, but at the same time so interested in her scholars that if she thought our plans were feasible, she entered into them with gusto. As we had never had a Christmas tree at school before, she could see what it would mean to us to have one to accompany our Christmas program.

The aforementioned program would consist of singing the usual carols and several of the scholars would have pieces to speak. There would be candy bags passed out and this year a tree with presents on it. Each scholar drew a name and would hang a present on the tree for that particular person. The teacher reckoned that if we were to have a tree we must have a Santa Claus. So, the largest boy in the room was recruited. More about that later.

At this point in time we always began our school day with the Lord’s Prayer and a short reading from the Bible. The beautiful story of the Holy Birth from St. Luke became our theme during this period.

Mrs. Mills devoted the last half-hour of the school day reading to us. This year, she read a story by Kate Douglass Wiggins titled “The Bird’s Christmas Carol.” It was an English story about a family named Bird.

The father was the pastor of the church next door. They had three boys and one Christmas Eve, Mrs. Bird gave birth to a daughter. The choir next door was singing the old English hymn “Carol Brothers Carol,” so they decided to name their little daughter Carol. Carol was a frail little girl and the next Christmas, just as the choir was singing the same anthem, she passed away.

This was a beautiful story and a classic. It made a great impression on the scholars, and as for myself, I have never forgotten it.

As a matter of fact, I got it at the library recently and read it again. It had the same effect as of yesteryear and it took me back to our one-room schoolhouse and the tears it engendered.

That was the year we decorated clay pipe dolls – we called them T.D. pipes. What the letters stood for, I never knew. The front of the bowl was the doll’s face. We drew in the eyes, nose and mouth and made a crepe paper bonnet to cover the bowl and a paper dress to hide the stem. This was a fancy proceeding and entailed some fancy work.

After the whole came together, they made cute little dolls which helped to decorate our Christmas tree, although some of the scholars took them home for the family tree.

When I started school, our schoolhouse was only three years old and considered quite modern for the times. Long windows made it very bright and it boasted a brick fireplace. We asked to have a fire in it to go along with our Christmas program, but Mrs. Mills said no, as the big box stove gave out plenty of heat.

Finally, the anticipated day arrived. Some of the big boys had cut a pretty fir up in Bean’s pasture, and, borrowing someone’s wooden rack, had set it up in the corner. The girls, with the teacher’s help, decorated it. Along with our clay dolls, we had fashioned chains from colored paper. Even without lights, it looked very lovely to our young eyes.

We had been looking forward to the day for several weeks and now it had arrived. All the mothers were on hand with the little preschool brothers and sisters. Some of the neighbors had loaned chairs and the little ones were seated in the front. The scholars taking part were seated in the back. The girls dressed up in their best go-to-meeting dresses and one or two of the boys boasted neckties. There were a few embarrassing pauses in the recitations, but the teacher filled in, and for the most part, the program went along as well as could be expected.

One of the ninth-grade boys was coaxed into being Santa Claus. Some sort of Santa Claus costume was resurrected, which bore no resemblance to the man of the same name. He had cotton batting for whiskers, which kept falling off; and a red stocking cap, several sizes too large, which at intervals kept slipping over his eyes. This was pretty embarrassing as it kept him either pulling up his cap or picking up his whiskers.

By the time the songs had been sung, the pieces spoken and the presents distributed, the young fry were getting restless. Their long black knitted stockings had begun to itch as the old box stove was really sending out the heat and they were ready to call it a day.

Doris Lyford was the mother of Bud Lyford, who mailed the Christmas card pictured on this page to his wife back in 1944.