From the late 1830s to the 1900s, Victorians in Europe and the former English colonies across the pond in America were overwhelmed with a mass compulsion to overdo – architecture, women’s hats, tableware and Christmas. Not satisfied with the customs and traditions evolved over centuries, they tacked on a gingerbread trim of secular symbols including Santa Clause, gaily decorated trees and extravagant gift giving.

This newfangled Christmas was slow to arrive and even slower to take hold in the area now known as Clay County.

Wealthy, trend setting Victorians in cities like London, Paris, New York and Philadelphia were flush with money and time on their hands. After the war, most residents of Clay County remained locked in a battle to survive in an agricultural economy with cash money scarce and free time just as hard to come by.

In the 1880s, northeastern tycoons of manufacturing, railroading and mining built huge homes in Green Cove Springs and Orange Park. They arrived for the winter with their furnishings, staffs, and opulent lifestyles including the new secular trappings of Christmas.

The new river towns also attracted a robust class of merchants, professionals and businessmen to settle year-round. Affluent locals and new arrivals alike became enthusiastic participants in the new seasonal rituals patterned after Clement Moore’s 1849 poem, “A Visit from St. Nicholas”.

Raphael Canova, an influential planter and former Sheriff of St. Johns County and mayor of St. Augustine, settled in Green Cove Springs soon after the end of the Civil War. His family was possibly one of the first locals to be known for their gaily decorated and candlelit Christmas tree – and the year it almost burned the house down.

That Christmas Eve, family, friends and neighbors gathered in the Canova’s parlor for the arrival of Santa. The children were stunned into silence by the sight of a tree in the house and bathed in the dim light cast by a myriad of flickering candles clipped to the ends of its branches. Tiny, colorfully wrapped and bowed gifts for each child decorated the fat cedar tree.

Santa, Raphael’s grown son, Phillip, attired in a fur-trimmed Santa outfit shipped all the way from New York City and wearing long white hair and beard ho-ho-hoed his way through the crowd. He was the spitting image of political cartoonist, Thomas Nast’s illustration in the 1886 Harper’s Bazaar. As he began removing candy and small wrapped gifts from the tree, his beard caught fire – panic and screaming ensued.

Luckily, just then the family patriarch, Raphael, galloped into the yard and, attracted by the screeching, strode into the fray. He whipped off his greatcoat and wrapped it around the smoldering tree, The house shook when he slammed his boot into the door to the front porch, calmly walked to the railing and flung tree, coat and all into the horse watering trough.

Phillip was not seriously hurt but shaken by what might have happened. For a few days he looked badly sunburned and it took almost till spring for his eyelashes and eyebrows to grow back.

As the 1900s unfolded, investors and developers swarmed further south. The economic good times sputtered. What little cash was generated was sucked up by taxes, barter ruled and frivolous spending spelled doom.

After World War II, the economy grew flush again.

Since then they have kept right up with every latest trend and today can overindulge their children with the best of them. Still … for many in Clay County, Christmas remains, even with all the mass marketing, a time for celebrating the birth of Christ and sharing good times and good food with friends and family.