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Holiday chase was tradition
Just as children were a part of Christmas at Mount Vernon, so was the hunt. Other gentlemen farmers joined Washington on the trail of pheasant and deer and the chase after a fox. The baying of hounds was as much a sound of the holidays as the ringing of bells, the singing of carols and the firing of muskets on Christmas morning.
After a breakfast by candles, the squire and his sporting guests would be off at first light. His grandson described the first president as he left for a holiday run behind the hounds: riding “with ease, elegance and power. . .superbly mounted, in true sporting costume, of blue coat, scarlet waistcoat, buckskin breeches, top boots, velvet cap and whip with long thorn.”
The religious side was not lost in the sporting and feasting. Seldom did the family miss church on Christmas Day. Washington’s diary entries for December 25 repetitiously note: “Went to Pohick Church . . . and returned to Dinner.”
The war years
Washington spent 13 Christmases with his family at Mount Vernon before the Revolutionary War. Then the conflict put the new commander of the colonial army in a far different setting for the holidays. In eight years he returned
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