Singalong Poster

Diane Buttrell, in her inimitable, let’s-just-do-it-fashion, has planned a wonderful Christmas Carol Singalong this Sunday afternoon, December 21^st, at the Oysterville Church. I promised her I’d get an article in Wednesday’s paper but it did not appear. Did I miss the submission deadline? Did the editor think it was for the Sunday after Christmas? Where did I go wrong? I am distraught!  So… with the hope that my readers will help spread the word, here is what should have appeared in the Chinook Observer day before yesterday:

In tribute to an old-fashioned holiday celebration, the Bayside Singers will host a Christmas Carol Singalong at the Oysterville Church Sunday afternoon at 3:00. The public is encouraged to attend and raise voices in joyous salute to the Christmas season.

Bank of the Pacific
Reader Board, Ocean Park

“In addition,” says organizer Diane Buttrell, we have a few other surprises in store. Several members of the community will share Christmas stories and memories. It’s bound to leave us all with warm, nostalgic feelings.”

According to local lore, in its heyday, Oysterville’s seven saloons and two churches vied for villagers’ attendance throughout most of the year with one notable exception. A few days before Christmas, the community would gather for the yearly Christmas Program featuring the children from the one-room school and involving almost the entire population of the town.

The men brought boughs of greenery and a gigantic noble fir from the woods; the women decorated the walls and windowsills, placing candles in strategic locations. Day by day, the number of brightly wrapped gifts under the tree increased until there was something for every boy and girl and for each of the ‘old bachelors’ who lived at the Stevens Hotel. Some years ago, Dale Espy Little (1911-2009) reminisced about the Christmases of her childhood:

The program, in the early years at the Methodist Church and later at the Baptist, were one of the big events in our lives, and not only for the children, but for the townspeople. I am sure, for many of them, those Christmas programs were the most enjoyable evening of the year.

Oysterville Church, 2014

My memory is very hazy about the actual programs. I think they involved things like children’s stories – such as the Little Red Hen.   I remember something about the sky falling…

The first piece I ever recited was down in the old Methodist Church, and I think I was three. It was something about a bird getting crumbs, and I was dressed as a little bird. I do remember that the costumes were very elaborate and that Mama worked on ours for weeks ahead of time. For those Christmas programs we even took off our long-legged underwear and went into summer attire. I had a sheer white dress embroidered with blue that I must have worn every Christmas for years. My brothers, of course, wore short-trousered suits.

With the closure of the Oysterville School in 1957, the annual Christmas gatherings all but disappeared. “I hope the community will join us on Sunday afternoon,” says Buttrell. “It’s time to begin a new Christmas tradition in Oysterville.”