How Did Modern Prophets Celebrate Christmas? - Part 1

The Know

Christmas is a special time of year for Christians across the world, including members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Examining how the early presidents of the church celebrated Christmas and their thoughts on this holiday, one can see their devotion to the Savior whose birth they commemorate on that special day.1

Joseph Smith

While most modern Latter-day Saint know that Joseph Smith was born in Sharon, Vermont two days before Christmas of 1805, Christmas was not a major holiday in the Protestant culture of early Americans.2 It was not widely celebrated in New England until mid-to-late 19th century. However, Joseph Smith clearly joined—and initiated—celebrations during the Christmas season throughout his life, even if they were not called “Christmas parties.”

Records from Joseph Smith’s early life concerning Christmas do not reveal much beyond his locations or revelations received on that day. It is likely that Joseph spent the Christmas season of 1826 with his fiancé Emma Hale, as they were married shortly after on January 18, 1827, in South Bainbridge, New York.3 By Christmas of that year, they had moved from New York to the home of Emma’s parents in Harmony, Pennsylvania. By the next Christmas in 1828, Joseph and Emma finally had a home of their own, and they may have thought that they would finally be able to settle down there, but in June, 1829, they had to leave their home in Harmony due to persecution. They moved to Fayette, New York, where they lived in the Peter and Mary Whitmer home.

After the Book of Mormon was published and the Church organized in 1830, Joseph received a revelation there that December commanding the saints to go to Ohio (D&C 37:1–3) and he likely spent that Christmas helping the church prepare to leave.4 On Christmas of 1831, Joseph was with Sydney Rigdon, preaching to people in Ohio, as he had been commanded to do in Doctrine and Covenants 71:2.5 On December 25, 1832, Joseph spent Christmas in Kirtland, where he received the revelation that would eventually become section 87 of the Doctrine and Covenants, prophesying about a war between the southern and northern states of the United States and the eventual “full end” of all gentile nations.6

December 1835 is when records begin to provide a better glimpse into Joseph Smith’s Christmas observances. On Christmas Eve, Jonathan Crosby, a new convert, knocked on Joseph Smith’s door and was invited in. He and Joseph spoke about Crosby’s conversion and then had dinner. Crosby recorded in his memoir: “[The Prophet] had the company of several persons that evening beside myself. There were his brother Hyrum, Reynolds Cahoon, Martin Harris, John Carle (the architect of the Temple), George A. Smith, and perhaps others. We had a very pleasant time. He treated his company with cider and pepper?, and had supper served up. I thought he was a queer man for a prophet of God. He did not appear as I expected him to, however I was not stumbled at all. I found him to be a friendly, cheerful agreeable man, I could not help liking him.” On the following Christmas day Jonathan Crosby was “invited to a feast,” where Joseph Smith Sr. gave patriarchal blessings.7 He recorded in his journal that he was “At home all this day and enjoyed myself with my family it being Chris[t]mas day the only time I have had this privilege so satisfactorily for a long time.”8

Christmas of 1837 was surely difficult for Joseph, as he had just returned to Kirtland on the 10^th and found that many former friends in Kirtland were trying to kill him.9 The next Christmas was not any better, as he spent it in a 14 by 15.5 foot jail in Liberty, Missouri, with no relief from the freezing temperatures, having been imprisoned on December 1 on false charges.10

Joseph spent Christmas of 1839 preaching to people in Philadelphia while waiting to appeal to the US government about the wrongs the saints had suffered. Christmas of 1840 was spent in Nauvoo, which had just received its city charter.11 At the end of 1841, Joseph was  involved heavily with establishing Nauvoo, especially preparing for the opening on January 5 of his new Red Brick Store on Water Street. Joseph likely spent Christmas of 1842 worried about his wife, as Emma had a son the next day who did not survive birth.12

Joseph spent Christmas of 1843, his last Christmas, in the Mansion House, which had recently been built. He recorded that at 1 a.m. a blind English sister, Lettice Rushton, with her three sons, two daughters (and their husbands), and other neighbors woke him up singing “Mortals Awake, with Angels Join” which “caused a thrill of pleasure to run thro’ my soul. All of my family and boarders arose to hear the serenade, and I felt to thank my Heavenly Father for their visit, and blessed them in the name of the Lord.” Later that afternoon, he recorded, about 50 couples sat down to dine and then in the evening “a large party supped at my house, and spent the evening in music, dancing, &c., in a most cheerful and friendly manner.” An old friend of the prophet, Orrin Porter Rockwell, unexpectedly visited him at this party, after having escaped a year of unlawful confinement in Missouri.13 This was Joseph’s last Christmas, as he was martyred on June 27, 1844.

Brigham Young

Brigham Young became the leader of the church after Joseph’s death in 1844. By Christmas of 1845 it was clear that the saints would have to leave Nauvoo soon, so Brigham spent much of the day and all night helping the Saints receive endowments and sealings in anticipation of the move to what is today Utah.14 Brigham spent his next Christmas trying to get housing built for native Americans in the inhospitable conditions of Winter Quarters in what is today Nebraska, as large number of Saints had begun to move west.15 Near the end of 1847, the Quorum of the 12 decided it was time for Brigham Young to take over as president of the Church and not only as the leader of the Quorum of the 12, and he was sustained at a special conference on December 24–27.16

After moving to the Salt Lake Valley, Brigham and the other saints had more time for Christmas celebrations. Emmeline B. Wells recalled, large dances held in the Social Hall. She said the children would never forget “the first Christmas tree in the Social Hall, where there was a present for every child of several large families, and all numbered and arranged in perfect order of name and age. … Brother Brigham was foremost in making the affair a grand success.” She recalled that “John W. Young, then only a boy, handed the presents down from the tree, and I recollect Brother Brigham standing and pointing with his cane, and telling John just which to take down, and so on; the children were wild with delight. After the gifts had been distributed, “the floor was cleared and the dancing commenced, and there was good music, too, and President Young led the dance… the evening was almost entirely given up to the children’s festivities, and the older ones, the fathers and mothers and more especially President Young, made them supremely happy for that one Christmas eve.”17

John Taylor

In December of 1846, John Taylor and Parley P. Pratt were on a mission in the British Isles. While on a train to Glasgow, Scotland, John Taylor wrote song lyrics and sang it to the tune of Auld Lang Syne at a Christmas party on December 18. The song was about the spread of the church and the power of the restored gospel to bring together groups of people within Great Britain that were historically at odds, with all of them gathering around the Christmas tree together.18 John Taylor became president of the church in 1880, but spent his last two Christmases in hiding at the home of Thomas F. Rouche in Kaysville, Utah.19 He died in July of 1887.20

Wilford Woodruff

Wilford Woodruff kept a voluminous journal, so people today know much about how he celebrated Christmas. He spent Christmas of 1836 at the Kirtland temple and saw Abraham O. Smoot be healed through a priesthood blessing.21 Wilford Woodruff spent Christmas of 1840 in London, and had “Baked Mutton, Goose, Rabbit Pies, Minced Pies, & Plum Pudding & bread & cheese, Porter and water,” with friends, and wrote, “Whare I shall be next Christmas day the Lord ownly knows, & what a year to come will bring forth we Cannot tell, But may the Lord preserve my life, my wife & Child in peace I pray & enable all the Saints to be esstablished in righteousness. Christmas is Considered the greatest of all days in England.”22 President Woodruff spent Christmas of 1841 with his family and the Quorum of the Twelve with their wives sleighing and having an “excellent feast” at the home of Hiram Kimball in Nauvoo.23 By 1871, Wilford had moved to Utah, and spent Christmas day husking corn.24 Wilford spent Christmas of 1876 at the St. George temple as Latter-day Saints worked on the building all day.25 On Christmas of 1883, he wrote, “I Ordained Charoques Erastus to the office of a Seventy I think the first Lamanite Ever ordained to that office in this dispensation.”26 After becoming president of the Church on April 7, 1889, Wilford Woodruff spent Christmas quietly with his family until his death in 1892.27

Lorenzo Snow

Lorenzo Snow and his sister, Eliza, left on a special mission to dedicate the Holy Land on October 26, 1872.28 By Christmas of that year, they were in Nice, France, where Lorenzo was impressed by how green everything was, even on Christmas. He had a 12-course dinner that day with 200 other guests at the hotel.29 After returning from his mission, persecution against Latter-day Saints who practiced polygamy increased, and Lorenzo Snow went into hiding. He was discovered in November of 1885, and spent Christmas of 1886 in the Utah Territorial Prison at Sugar House.30 LeRoi Snow, Lorenzo’s son, said that after he left prison, he often wrote poetry for his friends and sent it to them at Christmas until he passed away in 1901.31

The Why

Where and how these prophets spent their Christmases teach modern readers much about consecration. From Wilford Woodruff, who moved across the country to the frontier and had to spend one Christmas husking corn to support the family, to Joseph Smith, who spent a Christmas in a jail because he refused to deny his testimony, these prophets demonstrate the kind of Christian discipleship that Christmas is truly all about. Shortly before Christmas of 1838, Joseph wrote from Liberty Jail,

Dear brethren, do not think that our hearts faint, as though some strange thing had happened unto us, for we have seen and been assured of all these things beforehand, and have an assurance of a better hope than that of our persecutors. Therefore God hath made broad our shoulders for the burden. We glory in our tribulation, because we know that God is with us, that He is our friend, and that He will save our souls. We do not care for them that can kill the body; they cannot harm our souls. We ask no favors at the hands of mobs, nor of the world, nor of the devil, nor of his emissaries the dissenters, and those who love, and make, and swear falsehoods, to take away our lives. We have never dissembled, nor will we for the sake of our lives.32

These brave servants of God showed through their lives the commitment to Christ that is the true spirit of Christmas. They showed that they were consecrated to God year-round, particularly during the Christmas holiday season. They provide a powerful example for people everywhere to follow today.