Dec 4th Thursday. Returned from Boston to night
Have got the greater part of the things
I wanted. could not suit myself in all.
Mother spent yesterday with Augustus & to day
at Mr Torreys returned here this evening
Left Mr Orrs this morning did not dine there
it takes so much time Julia is at home
It is three weeks [entry ends here]
After seeing her husband off on his business trip to New York, Evelina spent yesterday and today shopping in Boston. She seemed satisfied with her purchases, though she confessed that she “could not suit myself in all.” Was she buying cloth or ribbon or other fashion accessories, or decorative items for the refurbished parlor, or foodstuffs for the pantry? It was early December, a time in our own culture when we modern folks are apt to be out (or online) shopping for Christmas presents. Evelina may have been buying Christmas gifts for her family, although that is unlikely, as the Ameses barely recognized Christmas, let alone celebrated it.
Although public opinion in New England was changing, a poor opinion of Christmas prevailed among the Yankees of Evelina’s generation, and certainly of Old Oliver’s. It was based on a Puritan tradition that considered Christmas as “an emblem of popery.” Yankees “were strongly influenced by the traditions of Calvinism and the routine of the established Congregational church, honoring a certain stoicism, hard work, and stern independence.” Instead of Christmas, “Thanksgiving was the most important day of the year.”* That would change.
But Evelina must have caught the train back to Stoughton, or the stage home to Easton, empty-handed of the kind of Christmas plunder that her favorite author, Charles Dickens, so famously described.
*Jane Nylander, “Our Own Snug Fireside,” 1993, New Haven, p. 8
evelinaames 