The holidays now & as Dec. 7, 1941, approached

This is the schedule for Chariton's 2021 "Dazzlefest" celebration, intended to jump-start the season in a lively way tomorrow. But I've been looking back 80 years, to late November 1941 and thinking a little bit about what lay ahead as holiday plans were announced that year.

Ed Halden was chairman of the Chamber of Commerce Decorations Committee that year and he reported in The Herald-Patriot of Nov. 25 that the square would be brightened up with four hand-made, decorated and lighted arches at the entrances to sidewalks leading to the Courthouse. In addition, streetlights around the square would be covered by transparent plastic shades and decorated with evergreen boughs.

Christmas carols would be played from the courthouse public address system every day during the season. And the Chariton Mens Choir would present a public concert in the courtroom a few days before the big day itself.

Elsewhere in the United States as war clouds gathered and the nation ramped up its defenses, complications had developed for the local celebration. The Herald-Patriot reported, for example, that "Evergreen boughs for decorations were secured last week by a long-distance telephone call to Minnesota, but in many localities, a shortage of Christmas trees and spruce boughs is threatened.

"Defense is interfering with the holiday celebrations in many ways, threatening not only shortages in retail goods, but the annual customs of Christmas trees and wreaths.

"Not only have many northern communities been experiencing a shortage of men to cut the trees, but a few localities have found that fewer freight cars will be available for shipping the trees south."

Transportation and production issues also were affecting the supply of holiday goods in the stores around the square, too.

"Meanwhile, Chariton merchants report the heaviest preholiday buying in years," The Herald-Patriot reported. "Lay-aways are in many instances exceeding floor stocks, and, as merchants have found it practically impossible to reorder, they recommend shopping as early as possible."

Just two weeks later, of course, Japanese forces would attack Pearl Harbor, the United States would be fully engaged in a world-wide war and concerns about the supply of spruce boughs and Christmas trees would seem less significant.