From the Vineyard Gazette edition of Dec. 23, 1909:

The “corner store” in Edgartown is the center of attraction for all shoppers just now. Everybody is enthusiastic over their magnificent stock of Christmas goods, the largest, finest and handsomest in this portion of the Western Hemisphere. If you once permit yourself to see their goods you will be sure to leave your money with them.

The usual Christmas services will be held at the Protestant Episcopal Church, William street, north, on Saturday, Christmas Day. The Rev. W.D. Manross expects to officiate in the morning. The other churches in town will celebrate by Sunday School festivals and Christmas trees.

The ladies of the Baptist society will give a Christmas entertainment on the evening of Dec. 23 and 24 in Capawock Hall. The entertainment comprises for the first evening a supper of the old-fashioned dishes, such as baked beans, brown bread, Indian pudding and pies of several kinds. An oyster stew will also be served and cake will be for sale. Not the least attraction of the evening will be an old-fashioned kitchen, where will be represented the employments of the women of the olden time, spinning, carding, knitting, etc. It is said that a wonderful Christmas pie will be cut, the plums in which will be presents for the children. On the second evening there will be a Christmas tree, and all are invited to come and decorate it with presents for their friends, old and young. Admissions fee on each evening is 10 cents.

Everybody that has or ever had or hopes to have any interest in the Lambert’s Cove M.E. Church is specially invited to be present at the Christmas tree exercises on Saturday, Dec. 24 at 7 o’clock. There will be something on the tree for you all. Limber up a little, my brother, in these Christmas days and come and enjoy an hour with the child-ren. And don’t forget the Christmas concert on Sunday evening. You will regret it all through the year, especially when people all tell what a grand concert they had at Lambert’s Cove. You will be perfectly welcome and all the attention will be paid you which you deem necessary.

Some earnest holiday don’ts:

Don’t think that you are too poor to keep Christmas. You can’t be so poor as all that.

Don’t spend so much on Christmas that you can’t get even with the butcher and grocer until March.

Don’t give presents that are a pleasure for 10 minutes and a burden and a worry for 10 years.

Don’t try to find the price marks on the gifts you receive. If the gifts are worth having, they mean something above dollars and cents.

Don’t check off each gift you receive against each present that you gave and calculate whether you made or lost. Christmas is not the time to be any smaller or meaner than you can help.

Don’t oppress children who are satiated to sadness with toys already by giving them more. There are other ways of making them happy, or if there are not, it is because they are spoiled with many pleasures and are the most pitiful beings alive. In that case, let them try doing something for poor children, who are blessed in powers of enjoyment, and see if the capacity won’t prove catching.

Don’t let the little ones into the secret that Santa Claus is an imposter. Let them figure out for themselves how a fat man with a big pack can get into the parlor grate through the chimney of a modern house heated by steam. Imagination is a quality desirous to cultivate.

Don’t set your own happiness up as the chief thing to be looked out for at Christmas time. Try to make other people happy and forget yourself, then you will be surprised to see how really happy you are.

Compiled by Alison Mead