There is something about Christmas that reflects the heart of a community. Decorated shops and streets and bustling crowds have long been a part of a Yass Christmas. And this year, 2020, the determination to do so again is uplifting.
PHOTO: The Yass Premier Band was a regular participant on festive occasions including Christmas celebrations. Photo: Yass and District Historical Society Inc
Usually, times were good in Yass district. Christmas morning for the first time in 1892 was ushered in by the celebration of midnight mass in St Augustine’s Church accompanied by “most impressive choir singing”. In 1904 as the clock struck midnight “a band of singers serenaded the streets and chanted songs of an inspiring character”. The town band traditionally promenaded the town on Christmas Day.
Celebrations could be a dignified affair. In 1909 the Yass River correspondent reported “Christmas on the River passed quietly, but the pleasant weather – quite English you know – made us all enjoy the usual Christmas fare. A number of old residents along the river, and of Mundoonan, met in the evening and spent several happy hours together.”
The prosperity and exuberance of the 1920s was obvious. The Yass hotels regaled their customers with Christmas cake and other dainties whilst at 8 pm on Christmas Eve, Comur Street was thronged with an estimated 4,000 people and 300 motor cars! The street looked like fairyland with Santa Claus patrolling the footpath. The customary boot throw sponsored by Mr Weatherby’s boot store was a highlight; a brief scuffle and the winner had himself a new pair of boots. There were customers galore “so many as to make the attending to them perplexing” all well dressed and prosperous “goes without saying”.
The large number of drovers and bushmen, “even on this festive occasion, talked sheep and pasture.” But the chill of 1928 Christmas Eve bordering on frost had campers seeking blankets well after shops were unfortunately shut at 11pm. After the Memorial Hall pictures came out and the midnight train left to meet the special excursion train to Sydney, the town was finally quiet.
Like any other Australian rural community, Yass has been through its hard times too. Christmases past have not always been so jolly.
1902 must have been a hard year. A correspondent writes, “It is Christmas Eve in Yass as we pen these lines and it would be difficult for the oldest resident to recall a duller Christmas Eve. Certainly, the past drought influences and the widespread poverty and distress on every hand are too depressing to admit of much heartiness in the customary compliments of the season.”
In 1906 Arthur Bryant Triggs’ Christmas dinner was probably ruined by the bushfire which burnt out 2000 acres. General shopping enthusiasm on Christmas Eve in 1914 was seen as a “healthy sign that so normal a condition should prevail” despite the outbreak of war.
In 1930 with the ominous threat of the Great Depression, business was generally good notwithstanding the gloomy forecast of pessimists and the arrest of five “inebriates” – they were all strangers and gave little trouble to Inspector Corcoran and Sergeant Hammond. However, a police raid on hotels in Yass on Christmas Eve 1933 resulted in 23 convictions for being on licenced premises during prohibited hours. A little too much Christmas spirit perhaps?
May Comur Street Christmas 2020 throng with crowds safely celebrating the fun, the bustle and the excitement of Christmas. Just what our community needs.
Judith Davidson
for the Yass and District Historical Society
