Advertisement

Malicious Christmas

Share via

One of Southern California’s greatest pleasures has been the genteel art of gloating. Our letters, photographs and, especially, postcards have reveled in the warm winter weather--not for itself alone, but for the sly joy of lording it over snowbound, frostbitten friends and relatives in the East and Midwest.

Postcards often showed winter contrasts--picking oranges versus trudging through snow--and printed verses conveyed the point: “In the land where oranges grow and Christmas comes without any snow . . . “

Even affectionate Christmas notes exuded a tinge of triumph: “Suppose you are all froze up while we have beautiful flowers blooming everywhere,” says one. “All sitting on the piazza now with the thermometer over 70 & not a bit of wind,” brags another. The prose may be more elegant than today’s, but the sentiments haven’t changed in a century.

Advertisement
Advertisement