Aspen History: An Aspen Children’s Christmas

“Christmas trees and sleigh rides made children happy,” announced the Aspen Daily Times on Dec. 21, 1907. “It was ‘rounds of joy’ from morning till night and the fact that it was the last day of school before Christmas added to its pleasure materially in the minds of the young folks. There was a regular Christmas program at all the schools and the pleasing results showed the advantages of proper training. The grades in each one of the schools made a splendid showing and the young folks did themselves proud. A Christmas feeling pervaded everything. There were smiles on every face that showed clearly that the school children were seeing visions of Santa Claus. Some of the little fellows had gone so far as to write to old Santa and to tell him of the things they expected him to bring them. But the music and the recitations and all that was on the programs in the different schools were very good and was only another evidence of the excellent school system that Aspen has. The children in many of the grades were taken out for sleigh rides and they didn’t restrain themselves one bit so far as noise was concerned. But they were happy and they made everybody else happy.” This image shows children standing near a horse-drawn sleigh, circa 1910.