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Show Christmas Spirit Prevailed Throughout Entire City The spirit of Christmas prevailed in American Fork during the past week to a great degree, not only in the usual exchange of greetings and gifts among friends and families but in the proper observance of the event in community gatherings, services, programs, etc. The Christmas festivities in reality reali-ty began in a public way on Friday afternoon, December 22nd, when Santa Claus responded to the firemen's fire-men's annual invitation and came to the community tree in the city park where some twelve hundred children ranging in age from infants in-fants in arms to children attending the sixth grade of school were gathered. gath-ered. The kiddies received from the hands of Santa and his genial aides, the firemen and their wives, a bag of nuts and candy. Many of the older people came to the tree at that time to witness the pleasure of the kiddies of this occasion. On 'Sunday, Christmas Eve, each of the four L. D. S. wards gave special spec-ial programs morning and night and the Community Church held special services Sunday night. All were very well attended and enjoyed. Santa visited some of the wards and left a treat for the kiddies at the Sunday Sun-day school exercises. The outstanding public observance of Christmas was the early Christmas Christ-mas morning service "The Lost Carol", in the Alpine stake tabernacle. taber-nacle. By 6 o'clock a. m. the auditorium audi-torium was filled, over one thousand people having assembled, and a number having come from the neighboring communities for this event. The program this year was quite different from the usual exercise, in that the production opened with a playlet depicting a quaint German home of 1818 in which Herr Franz Gruber, composer of the famous "Silent Night, Holy Night", and his wife, Frau Gruber lived. These parts were well portrayed by West Hammond and Mrs. Violet P. Peters. Herr Karl Muller, the choir leader, played by Norman B. Wing, and his choir gave a realistic note to the playlet. The part of the erring son was played by Gilbert Shumway. The message of the playlet was that of forgiveness that the spirit of peace and love may enter our hearts at Christmas tide, and this theme was beautifully developed as the play progressed by several tableau scenes "The Prodigai Son and his Father", "The Good Samaritan" and "The Nativity". The staging was a splendid piece of work considering the handicap of working with limited space and faculties. fa-culties. Those in charge had constructed con-structed a triple stage, the drama part enacted in front, and the tab-leaus tab-leaus on two elevations, with special curtains and draperies for each. The costuming, make-up, lighting, etc. were well above the average. The music for the program is deserving of special mention. Some of the city's best talent of young singers comprised the "choir". There were tears in the eyes of most of those who were present as the message of the play unfolded in speech, song and pantomime. The services opened with prayer by S. L. Chipman and closed with the congregation singing "Silent Night, Holy Night" and prayer offered by President C. E. Young. The stake boards take this means of expressing their appreciation to each and everyone who assisted in putting over this Christmas program. pro-gram. Axel Bloomquist and his assistants, assist-ants, I. L. Pratt, Clyde Schrieber of the staging are to be highly commended com-mended for their work. Mr. Bloomquist Bloom-quist worked out a number of details that only a person of his artistic ability could do. Luther Giddings and his assistants, Crandall Gid- dings and James Phillips who were in charge of the lighting, too, are to be given a great deal of the credit for the success of the production. Clarence Grant, the general chairman chair-man of the affair, together with the other committees, Mrs. Hannah Aydelotte and Miss Mary Pulley in charge of the drama; Mrs. May Hal-liday Hal-liday and Mrs. Nora Ingersoll, in charge of the tableaus, Mrs. Lottie Hammond and Miss Alice Parker, in charge of the choir and music, Stanley Peters, the reader, and the string ensemble under the direction of Betha Storrs, are deserving of the many fine tributes paid their efforts. ef-forts. They spent many hours in preparing the production. The several holiday dances which have been given have each been well attended and enjoyed. All in all, Christmas was' a pleasant pleas-ant occasion for the residents of this community and the spirit of peace and good will to all was in our midst. |