Merry Christmas from the Missouri Capitol.
Governor Mike Parson’s office is fully involved in the Christmas season. We don’t recall anything like this in all the years we have covered the capitol. Don’t expect to see him at his desk on Christmas day, however, although there were many times when a lot of people were at their capitol desks at Christmas.
The governor’s office often has been on display during this Christmas season because of something else Governor Parson has done that we’ve never seen done before. The double doors between the capitol hallway and the big oval office are open often with a glass barrier that people can walk up to and look into the office. The doors are closed when he’s doing governor business but at other times they’ve been opened so the visiting public can see the office and its Christmas decorations.
We’ve often thought it’s a shame that capitol visitors don’t get to see that magnificent room.
History tells us that Christmas has been through a lot of changes through the decades. For decades, it was just another day. Not until Victorian times did it begin to assume the secular commercial bonanza it is.
When the state legislature moved from its temporary home in St. Charles to the City of Jefferson, the fourth session of the General Assembly convened on Monday, November 20. Christmas day was just another regular business day, as was New Year’s Day. A reading of the House Journal for December 25, 1826 sounds similar to the House Journals today. It is—as it is now—pretty dry stuff.

MONDAY MORING, DECEMBER 25, 1826
The house met pursuant to adjournment.
Mr. Speaker appointed Messrs., O’Bryan, Grant, Thornton, Jewell, Canole, Bollinger, Nash, Johnson, Bruer, Brinker and Brock as a select committee on an engrossed bill from the senate, entitled an act supplementary to an act to organize, govern and, discipline the militia, approved 11th Feb. l825.
Mr. Grant of the committee of ways and means introduced bill appropriating money for defraying the expenses of government, which was read a first time and ordered to a second reading. On motion of Mr. Watkins, the rules of this house requiring a bill to be read three several times [sic] on-three different days was dispensed with, two thirds of the members present concurring therein, and said bill was read a second time on to-day.
On motion, said bill was committed to a committee of the whole house. Mr. Harris of the select committee to whom was referred the petition of sundry inhabitants of the counties of Chariton and Ralls, praying for the formation of a new county, reported a bill to establish the new county of Marion which was read a first time and ordered to a second reading.
On motion of Mr. Burckhartt, the rules of this house requiring bills to be read three several times on three different days was dispensed with, two thirds of the members present concurring therein, and said bill was read a second time on jo-day,
On motion of Mr. Cook, said bill was committed to a committee of the whole house.

The journal continues for several more paragraphs of routine business before the House adjourned until the next day. Representative Jewell, by the way as Dr. William Jewell of Boone County, a founder of Columbia for whom William Jewell College was named. Bollinger was George F. Bollinger, who represented Cape Girardeau in the territorial and state legislatures from 1812 until 1840. When a new county was formed of Cape Girardeau County, it was named for him.
Working on Christmas was not all that unusual in those times. It was seventeen years yet before Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol was published or that Sir Henry Cole, an Englishman, printed a couple thousand Christmas cards that sold for a shilling each. Christmas would not be declared a federal holiday for forty-four more years.
In 1828, the second general assembly to meet in Jefferson City took December 25 off but was back at work the next day. The practice was common for several years. In 1840, the House took the day off but the Senate did meet on Christmas day, a Friday, and on Saturday the 26th but adjourned both days because it could not achieve a quorum. Business as usual resumed in both chambers on Tuesday the 29th.
The House met on Saturday, December 21, 1844 and transacted business before adjourning until Monday the 23rd. But not enough people showed up to make a quorum again until the afternoon of December 30. The Senate met on Christmas day but only five members answered the roll call. It tried to meet each day after that but didn’t get enough members in the chamber to do official business until the 30th.
Then we get to this entry:

JOURNAL OF THE SENATE OF THE STATE OF MISSOURI, At the First Session of the Fifteenth General Assembly, begun and held at the City of Jefferson, on Monday, the Twenty-Fifth day of December, in the year of Our Lord one thousand eight hundred and forty-eight.
The Senate was called to order by the Hon. JAMES YOUNG, Lieutenant Governor and President of the Senate, and FALKLAND H. Martin, Esq., acted as Secretary pro tem.

That’s right. The 1848 legislative session began on Christmas Day. And it happened again just six years later:

JOURNAL OF THE SENATE OF THE STATE OF MISSOURI, AT THE FIRST SESSION, BEING THE REGULAR SESSION, OF THE EIGHTEENTH GENERAI ASSEMBLY, BEGUN AND HELD AT THE CITY OF JEFFERSON, ON MONDAY THE 25TH DAY OF DECEMBER, IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD ONE THOUSAND EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND FIFTY-FOUR, THAT BEING THE DAY FIXED BY LAW FOR THE MEETING OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF MISSOURI.

The Senators were called to order at 11 o’clock, A. M., by the Hon. Wilson Brown, Lieutenant Governor, and President of the Senate.

Lt. Governor Brown was one of about thirty people killed in the Gasconade bridge disaster on Nov. 1, 1855, the day the first passenger train was to have arrived from St. Louis.

In this building, long ago, Christmas was just another day for many years. There were times, though, when it appears some members of the general assembly left town for a few days, leaving the House and Senate without enough members to transact business although a few members who lived too far from home in those pre-highway, pre-bridge, pre-railroad days when the rivers were too icy to travel by boat stayed in Jefferson City, a town of no paved streets, few amenities, and fewer than three-thousand people before 1860.
The new Missouri Constitution adopted in 1865 established the January start date for the legislature, ending the winter sessions. Although the observance of Christmas had been slowly building, it was not until the Reconstruction years that December became the biggest month of the year for retail sales.
In a couple of weeks, today’s legislators will start a new session in today’s capitol. By then the Christmas decorations will be gone and the present capitol will feel, as the old one undoubtedly felt, the quickening pulse within it. Christmas and the old year are gone. A new year and new careers soon will begin to take shape. And so will the new journals that somebody else might read 170 years hence.