Town Looks Back : ‘Christmas in the Adobes’ Lights Up Old Monterey

The calendar was turned back to the 1840s and ‘50s in old Monterey on Thursday and Friday nights as a touch of history was added to Christmas in this seaport town.

Hundreds of men, women and children strolled along a pathway marked with flickering luminarias --candles anchored in sand in lunch-size paper sacks--leading to 15 of the oldest adobes in town.

Inside the mud-walled buildings, each illuminated by candlelight, “Christmas in the Adobes” was celebrated as it had been when Monterey served as California’s capital under the Mexican flag and in California’s first years as a U.S. territory.

“Our ancestors, the founding fathers of Monterey and the state of California would be very pleased if they could pop in on us today and see their adobes furnished and maintained as they had them,” beamed Martha Cooper Lang, 65, a volunteer hostess in the 165-year-old Cooper-Molera adobe.

Part of Vallejo Family

Her great-grandfather, New England sea captain John Rogers Cooper, built the house in 1823 when he married Encarnacion Vallejo, sister of Gen. Mariano Vallejo, founder of the city that now bears his name.

Inside each adobe a different Christmas theme was presented. At Cooper-Molera it was a Victorian Christmas, with Capt. Cooper’s painting of the Queen of England looking down from one of the walls. Hot cider, gingerbread and pound cake were served.

At nearby Casa Gutierrez, erected by Joaquin Gutierrez in 1849, a humble adobe where Joaquin and his wife Josefa raised their 15 children, taquitos and enchiladas were cooked over a roaring fire in a barbecue pit and served with tamales to the celebrants.

Several hundred Californians today trace their ancestry to Joaquin and Josefa. Some say that many of the people of Monterey, population 28,000, are distantly related to that early California couple.

In Casa de los Cuatro Vientos (House of the Four Winds), vintage 1830, Rebecca Hinckley, 7, dressed as an elf, distributed popcorn balls to each child who entered.

Saved From Demolition

The all-women Monterey Civic Club saved the House of the Four Winds from demolition in the early 1920s, launching a drive that spared Monterey’s historic district from the bulldozer. The house, adorned with period Christmas decorations, continues to be owned and preserved by the club.

All the other adobes in the open-house festivities make up the seven-acre Monterey State Historic Park. This is the fifth year that the park, the Old Monterey Preservation Society and other organizations have sponsored “Christmas in the Adobes.”

In each of the adobes, guides explained the history of the buildings and pointed out their features.

Proceeds from the night--admission was $7 for adults, $1 for children--went to the Monterey Preservation Society for the maintenance and upkeep of the historic structures.