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The joyous fumes of Christmas are in the air — whiffs of steaming mincemeat, chestnut dressing, pungent spices and mellow spirits. The feasting and partying will go on and on as friends come for visits “not of days, but weeks,” as his grandson noted.
This time had a special significance for the new nation’s first president. He and Martha were wed just as the Old Dominion’s long holiday celebration ended on Old Christmas, or Twelfth Night. That Christmas of 1758 even the heavens joined in the festivities as Halley’s Comet put on a pyrotechnic display.
Although George and Martha had no children together, children were always a part of Christmas at Mount Vernon. In their early years together, there were Martha’s two youngsters from her first marriage. Later, the Washingtons were joined by their grandchildren, the son and daughter of Martha’s boy, Jacky, who died during the Revolutionary War.
In the first Christmases of their marriage, toys for the youngsters were ordered from England. Selection was made in September for the Christmas of the following year as the shipment wouldn’t arrive until March.
Washington was a generous Santa; invoices in j the Library of Congress show that in March 1759, he ■ picked up a child’s fiddle, a coach and six in a box, a stable with six horses, a corner cupboard, a neat walnut bureau, a filigree watch, a neat enameled watch box, a toy whip and a child’s huzzit or sewing box. The playthings came from the London firm of Unwin and Wrigglesworth. The following year, in addition to an order for the toy makers, he instructed Robert Carey, Esq., Merchant pf
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