GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. (KREX) — Our world is almost unrecognizable from what it looked like just a hundred years ago, but is that also true for the holidays? Has the meaning and celebration of Christmas been molded to our current day?
Local historian Dave Fishell tells WesternSlopeNow the very first Christmas celebrated here in Grand Junction was in 1882, only a few months after the town was officially founded.
At what the Brunswick Hotel, a group of roughly 200 people gathered at 6:30 p.m. Christmas day.
The event lasted about two hours and gag gifts were passed around. George Crawford, one of Grand Junction's founders, was given a tin horn since he always shouted from the rooftops about his aspirations for Grand Junction. According to Fishell, the hotel was torn down in about 1902.
However, the most famous local celebration started in 1929 at the Avalon Theater - the Soupeater's Christmas.
Curator of History for Museums of Western Colorado Vida Jaber tells WesternSlopeNow the term "soup kitchen" became popular because soup was considered a cheap, nutritious and easy to produce meal.
She tells WesternslopeNow on Christmas day, starting at 10 a.m., families would go to the Avalon Theater where they would watch movies and short films.
At noon, the kids would make their way to the Doctor Pepper building on 7th Street to pick out unwanted or broken toys refurbished by the Grand Junction Fire Department and Grand Junction High School.
By 1938, a recorded 1900 children participated. The event came to an end in the 1940s, as the war efforts took away the attention of the Soupeater's Christmas.
Through all of these years, one thing hasn't changed…no one wants to wake up on Christmas without any gifts.