1955
6 January 1955
Big Family Christopher Introduces “Carols by Candlelight to Mudgee
On the Wednesday evening preceding Christmas, some two hundred people assembled around a scenic crib erected in Lawson Park and sang Christmas Carols to the accompaniment of the Mudgee Town Band.
As well, the boys and girls of the Mudgee South school enacted two Christmas plays that delighted and impressed the audience.
Willing hands, including those of New Australians, built the Crib in a few hurried hours after work. The new Australians were particularly happy to see a tradition of their country transferred to Australia, and one of their party rendered a carol in the Dutch language.
“Carols by Candlelight” was conceived only a few days before the actual function by the Big Family Christopher, and it goes to prove the Christopher thesis, “What one person can do.”
Some may have noticed how early last month one lady in America started a “Christ back to Christmas” campaign of getting the Christmas Manger into shop windows instead of Santa Claus and Jingle Bells. The campaign proved eminently successful in Chicago.
Mudgee Christophers felt that what America had done could be done in Australian fashion. Thus the effort of the little lady in America had the far-reaching effect of influencing a “Carols by Candlelight cum Christmas Plays” round a Scenic Crib at a river park in a big inland town of New South Wales.
All participants were so happy about the success of the function that they promised to bring thousands instead of hundreds next year, when there will be ample time for organising. The Big Family feels it has helped in establishing “whose birthday it really is.1
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