For the Kendall family of Norfolk, Christmas meant gathering to decorate an evergreen tree in their home. If this sounds traditional, it wasn’t always so. Claude Kendall, the son of Norfolk’s skilled photographer Marie Hartig Kendall, recalled in a written reminiscence that his family was the first in Norfolk to have a Christmas tree. Each year Marie invited the children of the town to their house to sing carols around the tree, pictured here about 1890. Marie grew up in the Alsace-Lorraine region of Germany (now part of France) where decorating trees had long been a holiday ritual. A 1605 diary from Strasbourg provides the earliest record of a decorated Christmas tree, hung with paper roses, apples and candies. With a strong sense of her heritage, Marie brought this custom with her to Norfolk.

—Ann Havemeyer

Photograph © Norfolk Historical Society.