From the Vineyard Gazette editions of December 1921:

Queer how few people really believe in Santa Claus. Just about this time of year almost everyone gets worked up into an ecstasy over Christmas spirit and pretends that he believes in Santa. It is easy to feel the Christmas spirit in December and forget all about it after New Year’s.

The world would be quite a different place if someone should begin preaching the spirit of Santa Claus in July. Most people need a proper atmosphere of Christmas greens and visions of reindeer and stockings by the open hearth before they can get a real sense of the Christmas spirit. These things come only once a year.

After all, it may be just as well. If they came oftener people would get tired of them and then there might not be any Christmas spirit at all, which would be too bad.

Even so when the happy, rollicking good will of real Christmas cheer is with us we can’t help being sorry that it must all be forgotten in a few weeks and that the world must go back to its usual sordid and outwardly grim and workaday state.

Sunday’s snow storm, the first real one of the season, managed to give the Island a Christmassy look. It spelled danger for automobilists and pedestrians, as windshields were so obscured by the driving snow that it was almost impossible to be sure that you were even on the right road. Which calls to mind the suggestion of State Registrar Goodwin that pedestrians walk on the left hand side of the road. This seems an eminently practical suggestion as one is practically assured of escaping death from behind and can see it coming from in front soon enough to step out of the way.

Geraniums, marigolds, honeysuckle, bachelor buttons and chrysanthemums in bloom. Midsummer? No, Sunday, December 4. All these were discovered by Harvey A. Luce of Mt. Aldworth, Vineyard Haven. And that’s not all. He gathered fresh lettuce for his dinner. It may be a long, long winter, but certainly it has been a long, long fall.

Here they are, Santa, the Gazette’s mailbag for you direct from the West Tisbury Centre School and laden with the heart’s desires of the little ones in that village. Last year the Gazette was pleased to forward the letters to Santa, and this newspaper takes as keen pleasure this happy season in forwarding the following missives:

My Dear Santa Claus,

I will try my best in school this year. You were so good to me last year. You brought me so many good things. Please bring me something this year.

I would like to have a doll with real hair, and a Campfire Girls book, a new doll’s carriage and a box of crayons, a new necktie for my winter dress. I want a red one. And a music roll. And I would like to have some doll’s furniture, a little doll’s watch bracelet to wear and some paper dolls, a paint book to paint in. A new winter dress for best, a raincoat and a bag for my school books. I would like to have a few books to read, and red and plaid and light blue ribbons. Please bring me a little doll that I can make dresses and hats for and I would like to have a little flatiron I can iron with. I don’t want to ask for too many things because I don’t expect them and please bring my little sister and brother some things and my father and mother. I wish you a merry Christmas.

Melba J. Cromwell

I would like to have a Bee bee rifle, skates, skees, rubber boots, jack knife. I wish you a merry Christmas my dear Santa Claus.

Your little friend,
Robert Schultz

I likeck to have a steam engine and I would liki to have train and a track also, and a double runner and a electric car. wish a merry Christ.

From your friend,
Tony Campbell

This Christmas I would like a little doll, and a little doll carriage. I would like a box of crayons and a set of dishes and a nice blue hair ribbon. I wish you a merry Christmas.

From your friend,
Helen Silva

This Christmas I would like to have a doll. And I would like to have a little piano. And I would like to have a little doll carriage. And I allso would like to have a pencil box and I would like to have a box of carnyons.

I thank you very much, dear Santa, and please bring my little sister something. I wish you a merry Christmas.

Your friend,
Louise Alley

I would like to have a Junior Racer and a electric train and a electric light in front of it and the track and the station, and a Bee bee rifle and lots of candy and a pair of skates and a pair of snow shoes and this is what I would like to have. Dear Santa Claus, I wish you a Merry Christmas.

Your friend,
Leslie Smith
 

Compiled by Hilary Wall
library@mvgazette.com