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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Sunday, December 24, 2006

COMMENTARY
Much merriment on Christmas Eve 1906

Editor's note: As The Advertiser celebration of its 150th anniversary comes to a close, we took a look back at our archives to capture for you the spirit of Christmas in Honolulu 100 years ago. Reprinted below is a front-page story that ran in The Pacific Commercial Advertiser on Dec. 25, 1906. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

And the noise was music to the ears of the small boys for they had not had so much fun since the glorious Fourth. There were horns and horns, some of the bass sort and others up on the other end of the keyboard.

There has not been so lively a Christmas Eve as last night in Honolulu in several years. The merchants have not had so busy a season for a long time and the crowd came out to join in celebrating the event.

Matrons of forty odd were as full of mischief as the cherub of sixteen and did their best to out-noise them in the management of tin horns and policemen's rattles. The young man with a nickel package of confetti was almost as conspicuous as the small boy with his torpedo starter.

One band of troubadours marched the streets armed with bells made of kerosene oil tins and other soul-harrowing instruments. Some of the boys imitated Pan and tooted two horns at one time merely to show that it was really the time for noise.

The shops were crowded; in several of them special policemen keeping lines in order so as to facilitate the disposal of the goods. In one of the dry-goods stores four cashiers and bundle-wrappers were kept busy until nearly midnight in spite of the din outside.

The real storm-center of the night was on Fort from Hotel to King Street and in that section the crowds gathered in bunches or marched in single and double file through the evening. There was the utmost good humor through it all and a blast of a horn or the popping of a bunch of firecrackers in no way disconcerted the persons nearest the explosions.

The train service could have been vastly improved by the addition of a few cars in the early part of the evening. As it was, those from Punahou and Waikiki between six and eight p.m. were crowded to the limit.

The Sheriff's Department was well represented on the street, a number of policemen, one of them mounted, being stationed on Fort between King and Hotel.