This huge, beautiful popup Nativity scene Christmas card was given to young Dorothy Kneipp by Percy Sing Young of Kwong Sing and Co about 1907. Dorothy married Royal Hartmann in 1926, and their daughter Helen gave the card to the museum and Harvey Young very kindly made a display case for it.
This card was but one of the presents Kwong Sings gave to their customers, particularly at Christmas time. (For wedding presents, it was a pair of beautiful vases.)
One hundred years ago The Glen Innes Examiner of Saturday 19 December 1925 advertised the type of merchandise being promoted as the ideal Christmas gifts of the time and told us that shops would stay open until 10pm on Christmas Eve.
The Supply Store advertised the ‘Most Wonderful Array of Xmas Requirement in Handkerchiefs, Perfumery, Powders, Powder Puffs, Vanity Bags, Fancy Costume Hangers, Fancy Ribbon, Garters, Gloves, Handbags, Manicure sets, Soaps, Hosiery’.
There were ‘Exceptionally fine’ xylonite goods at Schmidts (xylonite was a plastic similar to celluloid). Box Brownies priced from 11/3, Folding Brownie cameras £4/7/6; and great gift suggestions of cigarette cases and ashtray stands.
And we were told that on Christmas Eve and Christmas morning the Salvation Army would perpetuate the old custom of carol singing.
Who remembers the 1950s? – the huge Christmas stocking in Grey Street being raffled by Sid Adams in aid of Ambulance funds…..
And that miniature Santa Claus seated at an organ on the right-hand side of those magnificent stairs in the centre of Mackenzies -his hands moving rhythmically back and forth across the keys as if he was really playing the glorious Christmas music that resounded in the store.
I fondly remember my Christmas books: Beatrix Potters, Milly Molly Mandy, Ameliaranne, Peter Pan, the Wind in the Willows, Little Women, Anne of Green Gables…
