Bismarck Weekly Tribune

A CALIFORNIA CHRISTMAS, 1852.
BY KATE VAN NORMA GIBSON.

We reached California late in the fall of 1852, and before we knew it could be winter in a country where the grass was freshly sprouting and the trees bright and green, Christmas was upon us, and no turkey in the state. The children held a solemn conclave and concluded that Santa Claus could never get so far, besides there was no snow for his sleigh to travel on.

As I said, there was probably not one turkey in the whole state, and though there were a few chickens, no one would have consented for a moment to kill them when eggs were worth $1 apiece. So our hopes for an old fashioned Christmas fell far below zero, and in spite of our best endeavors we felt a little blue and homesick.

There was plenty of the poor Spanish beef to be obtained, and also veal, but a sucking pig would have been an impossibility, and there was absolutely no fruit in the country except such as grew wild, and, of course, there was none at this season, but the genius of women for making something out of nothing is proverbial, and the men of the family thought the women would pull through somehow, though how was that to be without fruit, eggs, milk or cream, or, indeed, anything except bayou beans, Spanish beef and a very few potatoes, and no onions to season anything with, nor knives? This was in what is Oakland now, but at that time there were but three wooden houses and a few tents there.

The two women put their heads together and finally decided that they could at least make a plum pudding, but in the little "store" there were no raisins, nothing but dried apples. They bought six eggs, paying $8 for them, considering the season, and took some dried apples. These were put to soak over night and on Christmas morning they were chopped into small bits, and with the eggs and a plentiful supply of molasses, flour and suet, a big pudding was put into a bag and over the fire to boil. This success stimulated the women to try an apple pie or so.

In the meantime a big rib of beef was duly salted and peppered and surrounded with potatoes, and was made ready to put in the oven when Uncle Charlie, who was a mighty hunter, suddenly made his appearance with a big fat goose in one hand and a fine big turkey, as we thought, in the other, both plucked and dressed, ready for the oven.

Some one was sent to buy an onion, as the grandmother said the goose really must have onion in the stuffing, and for that one little onion, no larger than an egg, we paid $1 and were glad to get it at that price. Grandmother brought out her wonderful bag of herbs and a little of very precious sage, and summer savory was sifted into the dressing and the two fine birds were put down to cook, and we all began to rejoice that even in far off California Christmas was not quite lost.

The two birds now cooking had been shot early that morning. One was a honker goose and the other was an enormous sand hill crane, or, as they were then called, California turkey. These immense birds grow very fat and are really delicious eating, as we found at dinner time. And when the table was laid out with the finest linen and choice dishes that had followed the family fortunes "around the Horn," that dinner was voted a success, but the pudding, covered with blazing brandy, looked just as Christmas like as if it had been a real plum one, though it had a sprig of "live oak" instead of holly in it, and although it did not taste quite as good.

After dinner we had games, and though the children missed the hanging up of the stockings, they went to bed happy in the hope, afterward fulfilled, that Santa Claus might get there by New Year's, seeing that they lived too far away for him to reach them on Christmas.