Mrs. Ferguson continues to describe the first Watonga Christmas in her book “ They Carried the Torch…” And here let me say that if any skeptically inclined person tells you that there is no Santa Claus, don’t you believe him because there is. I spent that Christmas morning telling Christmas stories to the small boy and wondering how it would be possible under the circumstances to prepare anything resembling a Christmas dinner. While making a heroic effort to keep back tears of homesickness a knock at the door demanded my attention.
When I opened the door for the moment it seemed as if the stories I had been telling were really coming true, for there where the doorstep should have been was Santa Claus with a basket on his arm, smiling and bowing in such a friendly manner that my heart grew warm just to look at him.
He wore a fur cap, had funny little side whiskers, was round and fat, with a wonderfully real Christmas look on his ruddy old face. It was hard to understand some of his words, but his meaning was certainly plain as he put down the basket, patted the little boy on the head and said something about strangers in a strange land, Merry Christmas, and vanished, not up the chimney, but across the bleak street to his little bakeshop, the home of our patron saint.
But the Christmas spirit remained, the tears and blue atmosphere had disappeared as if by magic. The basket, when unpacked, revealed many treasures for small boys and first aids to a Christmas dinner. But best of all it was the genuine cheer of having been remembered that made the day a happy one.
From all the Friends of the Ferguson Home Museum we wish you the joy of giving as the German baker and the joy of receiving as the Ferguson family did that first Watonga Christmas.