By Linda Chase

December 1941 is the first time that I remember seeing a Christmas lighting in Prescott.

I was in the first grade at Miller Valley School, and we were barely learning to read about Dick, Jane and Baby Sally. Reading Christmas carols was beyond us, but somehow we were taught both verses of “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” so that we could sing them from the steps of the courthouse.

I think the song was new then, and I remember hearing “White Christmas” for the first time that year or the next.

A very tall tree on the north side of the plaza held the lights that constituted Prescott’s “lighting” and I don’t know if it was cut and brought in from the Bradshaw Mountains or grew right where I was seeing it on that special night.  It glowed with more colored lights than I had ever seen anywhere, and I was enchanted.

The same December Pearl Harbor was bombed and I don’t believe that Prescott had a community Christmas tree again until after the war was over.

Hearing “when the lights go on again all over the world...and the boys come home again all over the world” on the radio meant our tree and our boys to me.

My Dad said that when the war ended we would hang lights on the pine tree in our front yard but to this day no one has.

Santa Claus indeed came to town that December night on the plaza and gave each of us little ones a stocking filled with brightly colored hard candy, nuts and oranges.

It was a special night for me, and Daddy held me up high above the crowd (after my song on the steps) so that I could see it all.

The “wishbook” didn’t arrive in September’s or October’s mail as do the stacks of gifts catalogs for 1999. I rushed to turn its pages and feast my eyes on the contents.

I don’t remember if the B and B (the Bashford and Burmister Store) had toys at Christmas, but when J.C. Penney moved into the Bashford Building, each year the basement was transformed into “Toyland”, and what a world of joy that opened for us kids?

Snow came down for Christmas 1941.

Mary Vermillion and I both received infant-sized Betsy-Wetsy dolls from Santa.

I lost the cap that Mother had knitted for me in the snow when my folks took me for a walk on Christmas Day along Miller Creek to see if the ice was frozen solid.

Daddy went back and found it for me.

Mary and I must have carted our Betsy-Wetsies to school for the toy display on the second day back from Christmas break. This event took place annually at Miller Valley.

Each child was permitted to show off a favorite gift, and we even marched around to other classrooms to see what Santa had delivered to the rest of the vally.

Back then, Christmas trees at home usually, went up on Christmas Eve and came down on New Year’s Day.

It was fun to walk or ride along the street on Christmas night to see the decorated trees in everyone’s window.

Each classroom at our school had its own tree too. Decorated with paper chains and handmade ornaments.

Plus a few blown glass balls carefully carried by mittened hands from home.

One the last day before break the teacher made sure that someone in the class who really needed that tree got to take it home

We drew names at the school to bring either homemade items or a gift costing under 25 cents to our party.

I met the challenge, and Granddaddy Williams helped me make a wooden boat for Laurie Sessions, the name I drew.  I received in turn an array of plaid taffeta ribbons for my braids.

Perhaps the most memorable of the Christmas happenings in Prescott took place each year at the high school, when Mr. Backe’s wonderful chorus of students sang the Vesper Service and then the extraordinarily beautifully staged production of “Why the Chimes Rang” followed.

Miss Lillian Savage directed her high school drama students in this, but the two leading roles called for somewhat younger thespians and were filled by two lucky grade schoolers.

We saw Cynthia Gardner as the lead one year and I think Tad Pfitter followed her the next. Donna Evans was among those who, as an angel, blessed the gift for the Christ Child that inspired the chimes to sound forth, and I can still see Jeannie Franks shining up there.

Bob Palm pantomimed as a holy priest in 1950, and Cynthia showed up in the story as the old woman.

It was a lovely tradition that continued for many years, and no one who saw it will forget it.

Through years of singing: listen to the Lams” for Mr. Merrill, projecting “Listen O’Isles unto me and harken ye people from afar” in Miss Robertson’s speech chorus, climbing the stairs to the attic to choose costumes, and painting nativity scene in the upper story on Gurley Street, we knew that Prescott was our Christmas Town...but who would have guessed then that it would someday become Arizona’s Christmas City?......And Everybody's Hometown.

(Linda Chase is a long time resident and lives in the house she grew up in).