Dear Santa Claus. how are you By this time am Just six years old and I am sick now But I think I will be well By Christmas and I want you to Bring Me some oranges candy and fire crackers billy goat and too mules and lots of things good By fir this time. Linard Monneyham, West Asheville
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Dear Santa:–I am one of your old friends & I will be eight year old the day after Xmas. I have bin trying to be a real good boy so I want you to bring me a stocking full of good things to eat, a drum, gun, tricickle, football & a good old sled & a good big horn. Willie Israel.
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Dear Santa, I’m a nice little girl and can’t write but mama will tell you what I like best. Please bring me a go-cart, with a rag doll to roll in it, some toys candy and oranges. Will be real good. Your little friend, Marion Edwards, 87 Ora St. City.
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Dear old santa clase, my name is arthur McLean I am 9 years old Will you please bring me a knife, a nice tie, a drum, a horne, a pop gun, a ball and bate, and a repeating cap pistol, and a pair of gloves, and some tops, and some candy and nuts, and don’t foreget my little sister Lucille that’s all for this time. Asheville.
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Dear Santa Clause I am a little Boy 3 years old will you please Bring me a little wagon a horn a picture Book a Rocky hourse some candy oranges’ Bannas and any thing Else you can Spair so good By I am your little friend Rame Clark, No. 90 Jefferson drive P.S. please don’t for get my Baby sister she wants a doll Bring her lots of things to play with her name is Flora.
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Dear Santa, please bring me a wagon and a rubber ball and what you think is right by by. Hairl Reynolds 55 Robert st.
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Dear Santa–I want some fire crackers and a long pole with a hook on the end to catch a chicken and Billy possums and a show I want a broom teaset and a little ship a butter print and a little clock doll carriage and a doll that will sleep, dough roller and a dough pin and a pin and a foxy grandpa doll and frying pan and peanuts cracker jacks . . . and candy stick candy turkey candy hearts oranges bananas and dresses and a little house and a horn and I guess this will be all I want this time. Your friend Carrie Drake. 319 N.M. St. Asheville.
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Dear Santa Claus. I want a cap pistol that shoots fifty times. I want a gun, and an Indian Suit, a toy house, a hook and ladder. I want some nuts, candy, oranges, banannas, and raisins. I want a box of fir-crackers. I live on 71 Zillicoa Street. Santa Claus please donot miss our house. From Your Friend: William Edward Moore.
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Dear Canta. please bring me a little wagon. and some fir crachers I am a one legged boy. Joe Causby 126 Short Robert.
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Dear Santa Claus, Will you please bring me a drum, some water-colors, a scrap book and a pair of little brown kid gloves, size 5. And Santa Claus a little red automobile like Florences and Helena. Have you any “Buster Brown” stockings. I would like some. I’m four and a half years old. Please carry Herbert and James some too. their new ones are wearing out already. I didn’t know you were married Santa Claus, Is she big and fat and jolly too? Edward Copeland, Jr. 50 Chestnut St.
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Dear Santa Claus. I am a little boy three and a half years old. I am a good boy and carry in stove wood for mama. Please bring me a horn, a little saw and hammer, a hoe, shovel and rake. nuts fruits and candy. Don’t forget some fire crackers. Harold Mitchell. Asheville
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Dear Santiclause, I want you to bring me a express wagon some fire crackers some oranges candy and nuts this is all I will ask for for I want you to have enough for all the other little children I am ten years old Oscar Penland, Asheville R.F.D. No 1.
Published in the Sunday, Asheville Citizen-Times December 12, 1909.
Christmas Rose
Happy Holidays and a Peaceful New Year from the Staff of the North Carolina Room.
Post by Zoe Rhine, Librarian
I can see these little children from an earlier less greedy time and long before the advent of plastic and cyber toys. I find the little mill – working boy especially precious.
I’m really curious about the historical aspects of children wanting oranges and bananas for Christmas. They also seemed to ask for nuts. Was fruit (or nuts) a commodity back then? Was there a medical reason, such as to fight off scurvy or to just eat healthy? Was it just popular to eat? So many questions…
That’s a good question. Just off the top of mind, which I wanted to mention in the post, is that I recall discovering earlier that bananas were pretty much a new thing during this time. Some mountaineer was quoted as saying, he wasn’t sure what to do with it. I think fresh fruits and nuts were probably just really special treats.