Tree lighting ceremonies on post

Christmas Tree lighting Ceremony on Fort Leavenworth

Christmas was one of the most special days of the year in the frontier Army. Plans, both organizational and individual were made well in advance. Special meals were prepared with unusual delicacies paid for out of company funds. The day was set aside for rest and celebration and the strict rules of a military post were relaxed a bit. In some places men confined or sentenced to extra duty for minor offenses might find their sentences commuted. Whenever possible the community would prepare a religious service or special entertainment.

Fort Leavenworth was no different, and indeed had advantages over the more remote posts. Supplies for decorations and special foods were more easily had; the larger and more settled population brought more hands for the work of preparation; and the vigorous chapel programs on post added to the religious tone of the celebration. In his autobiography First Sergeant Percival Lowe mentions the annual “Winter Balls” held by the enlisted men on post in the early 1850’s. Records in the towns around Leavenworth record fancy dress balls and orders for fine receptions.

One of the historically recent traditions on Fort Leavenworth is the Christmas Tree Lighting ceremony. It was begun on the 16^th of December 1981. The Protestant and Catholic congregations on post sponsored a post-wide Christmas Tree lighting ceremony, held at the Gazebo in Zais Park, across from the Memorial Chapel. A tree immediately in front of the Chapel was decorated and lit by LTG Howard F. Stone, the CAC Commander at the time. The ceremony included a presentation titled “Christmas in Other Lands” and a brief talk on “Christmas in Germany” by Colonel Walter von Hobe, the German liaison officer.

An announcement in the Lamp noted; “It is hoped that this presentation will begin a tradition at Fort Leavenworth, in which Americans and Allied officers and their families can share Christmas with one another. Indeed, the tradition has continued for twenty-five years to this point. Past ceremonies have included instrumental and vocal music, invocations, refreshments, civilian and military community dignitaries.

Sources:

Don Rickey, Forty Miles a Day on Beans and Hay, 1963 (206-7).

The Lamp, December 3, 1981 (6).

Percival Lowe, Five Years a Dragoon, 1906.

30 November 2006

Kelvin D. Crow

Command History