THE CHILDREN’S CHRISTMAS

Alice Moore Dunbar

Educator, author, and social and political activist, Alice Moore Dunbar received her first recognition as the wife of celebrated poet and novelist Paul Laurence Dunbar and was later acclaimed as a Harlem Renaissance poet. Born in New Orleans, Louisiana, on July 19, 1875, Alice Ruth Moore was one of two daughters of Joseph Moore, a Creole seaman, and Patricia Wright Moore. She attended elementary and high school in New Orleans and graduated from the two-year teacher training program at Straight College (now Dillard University). She later studied at Cornell and Columbia Universities and the University of Pennsylvania, where she specialized in psychology and English educational testing. Beginning her teaching career in New Orleans in 1892, except for brief interruptions, she taught school for almost four decades.

In 1895, Alice Moore completed her first book, Violets and Other Tales, and began a romance with Paul Laurence Dunbar, who gained great fame for his Negro dialect verse. In 1897, she moved from Boston to New York City, where she accepted a public school teaching position in Brooklyn, and assisted Victoria Earle Matthews in establishing in Harlem the White Rose Mission, a home for girls. It was in December 1897 that she wrote “The Children’s Christmas,” a story that reflected the lives of the children she taught.

“The Children’s Christmas” is the story of five children, from different racial and ethnic backgrounds, who live in a large city. These children represent all children who, through circumstances not of their making, do not experience the joy, the spirit, and the meaning of Christmas. This social commentary by Moore is presented as a panorama to show how many children at the turn of the century did not celebrate the “luxury” of a real Christmas.

Julia is an unkempt seven-year-old who attends school mostly in the afternoon to reduce the necessity for breakfast. She lives with her mother, who drinks excessively and physically abuses her. When asked, “What will Santa bring you?” she replies, “Nothin’ but another beatin’.” Although Moore does not identify the child as being African American, the use of dialect suggests that she is.

Matilda is a Jewish girl who attends the same school as Julia. She lives in an orphanage. Being Jewish, she does not celebrate the holiday, but she accepts Santa Claus and the traditional role he plays. Santa brings toys, and Matilda wants a doll for Christmas.

Florence is too young for school, so she gets to play outdoors during the day. She views Christmas as a cold, uncomfortable time of the year. Poorly dressed in hand-me-down clothes, toys would not be number one on her list for Santa.

Frank, the nursemaid to his baby brother, wanders with his charge through the streets taking in all the beautiful decorations and hoopla of the holiday season. He gazes in the store windows knowing that his wish for even one toy would be in vain. Santa Claus would not stop by his house.

Hattie, almost blind since the age of six, cannot see the beautifully decorated store windows and other adornments of Christmas. But she can hear the joyful talk and sounds of the season. Is her wish for Christmas the gift of seeing?

Moore reminds the readers that Christmas is the children’s time and that, regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, religion, or circumstance, all children should be given the opportunity to participate in this joyous occasion. She reminds the more fortunate in society that they should live up to the true spirit of Christmas and share their good fortune with those who are less fortunate.

It is most likely that the setting for this story is Brooklyn, New York, in 1897, the year that Alice Ruth Moore taught in a public school there. Moore, who was only twenty-two at the time the story was written, was struck with the plight of these children. Her concluding statement—“these little folks are not imaginary small personages created for Sunday-school literature and sentimental dissertations on so-called sociology. They are actual, evident, their counterparts around us, no matter where we may live”—suggests that she wrote the story to illustrate the plight of many urban children who lived in poverty and despair. As a budding young crusader, she embodied the spirit of the Progressive Era (1890–1920) and believed that one should use all resources to bring public attention to the conditions that existed in society.

The Children’s Christmas

With the tinkle of joy-bells in the air, the redolence of pine and the untasted anticipation of saccharine joys to be, the child steps forward into the full heyday of his prerogatives. For this is childhood’s time—it is the commemoration of a child’s birth and the gifts brought him. It is a time of peace and gladness, say the children; it is our reign of love and gift-giving.

Yet even the small kings and queens who reign over this carnival of joy are not happy. There are many who have never come into their kingdom at all—to whom the luxury of a real Christmas would be a foretaste of Paradise. Did you ever stop to think of this? You who are pushing and jostling in the shopping crowd, your arms full of expensive toys, and your heart full of cheery cares lest someone be forgotten? We might have a little panorama for your especial benefit if you do not mind.

Julia is in school. She is seven and as unkempt as the school authorities will permit her. She is frequently absent from the morning session. We wondered why until we learned that her mother was “mos’ all the time drunk” and didn’t get up mornings, so Julia slept too to reduce the necessity for breakfast and came straggling in, in the afternoon, half stupid, wholly indifferent.

“What will Santa bring you?” asked her nearest neighbor in school during a lively discussion about Christmas.

She shrugged her tiny shoulders, “Nothin’ but another beatin’ I guess.” And the nearest neighbor turned away to tell her chosen friend that as she had four dolls now she didn’t want another one just yet.

Matilda is in the same school. She is a swarthy, pretty black-eyed Hebrew. Her black locks are cropped short. She wears the uniform of an asylum not far away. Christmas? It is incomprehensible to her. Who was the Christ child? Why keep his birthday? But Santa Klaus she understands, and the gifts that are denied her. Dolls! Why to possess even the tiniest one would seem too much happiness for a mortal Hebrew maiden. As she heard the other children enumerating their toys it seemed to her wonderful that they did not unfurl wings, for surely angels are so blessed. Why if she only had the wee smallest toy she would never need to speak in school again, so complete would be the measure of her bliss.

Florence is on the other side of the river and too small to be in school. So when it is warm she plays in the sunshine which freely attempts to clear the stagnant atmosphere. When the winds nip through from river to river she seeks shelter in a tenement, dark and fetid and noisy with brawls and drunkenness. Christmas? It means cold weather and shivering in a poor, thin jacket whose warmth was a thing of the past when it fell to her two years ago. Toys? Once she actually touched the dress of a gorgeously dressed lady doll, and the memory of it was like wine for weeks. Even now she regarded that hand in some measure as sacred.

Frank stands musingly before a window resplendent with gold and silver Christmas tree “fixin’s.” The poor child gazing hungrily in brilliant windows at holiday time is a figure that is well-nigh threadbare in juvenile fiction, but it is so pitifully, painfully true and ever-recurring. He clutches his baby brother by the arm and dreamfully wonders if there was ever one person on earth who was rich enough to buy all that. Baby brother grows impatient, for he is whimsical, and nurse Frank moves away signing hopelessly. It was like longing for ice cream the year round to even dare wish for one toy.

Hattie listens to the Christmas talk and the Christmas noise and the fakir’s wondrous stream of unchecked gab, and wrinkles her little face painfully. You see she is almost blind, and subjects are but an indistinct blur to her. Blind at six, through carelessness and ignorance, with not a helping hand, that will lead her to a dispensary for treatment. She cannot see the wondrous windows; she can only hear and wonder. Who knows if in her groping, mental as well as physical, there does not form the faultily famed wish for the Christmas present of seeing?

These little folks are not imaginary small personages created for Sunday-school literature and sentimental dissertations on so-called sociology. They are actual, evident, their counterparts around us, no matter where we may live. They have been robbed of the most precious birthright that Heaven bestows—their childhood—and their annual birth-feast is denied them not because the world wishes them ill, but because the world is scarcely cognizant of their existence. And yet “Christmas is the children’s time, the day of their rejoicing.” Does it seem fair that to the least of them there does not filter some minute molecule of the general happiness, some infinitesimal spangled toy that would never be missed from the more fortunate ones?