“Yes, indeed,” she said, laughing, “we kept Christmas for a week, and all our friends and relatives were welcome, so that our big ranch-house was full of company.  Indeed, some of the visitors slept in hammocks or rolled up in blankets on the verandas.  Our house was built round the four sides of a square garden, with wide porches, where we sat on pleasant days.  There was a fountain in this garden, and orange trees, which at Christmas-time hung full of golden fruit and sweet white flowers.  On ‘the holy night,’ as we called Christmas Eve, we hung lanterns in the porches, and everybody crowded there or in the garden for their gifts.

“No, we had no Santa Claus nor Christmas tree, but my father gave presents to all, even to the Indian servants and their children.  A fan or a string of pearls, perhaps, for my sisters, the young senoritas; a fine saddle or a velvet jacket for my brother; and red blankets or gay handkerchiefs for the Indians, with sacks of beans or sweet potatoes to eat with their Christmas feast of roast ox or a fat sheep.  Afterwards we danced till morning came, or sang to the sweet tinkle of the guitars.  Well do I remember, children, when the good Padres, or priests, at the Mission forbade us to waltz, that new dance the Gringos had taught us to like.  I recall, also, that the governor only laughed and said that the young folks could waltz if they wished.  So at my wedding, soon after, when we danced from Tuesday noon till Thursday morning, you may be sure we had many a waltz.

“Pretty dresses, Edith?  Yes, gay, bright silk or satin ones, with many ruffles on the skirts and wide collars and sleeves of lace, or yellow satin slippers and always a high comb of silver or tortoise-shell and a spangled fan.  And we had long gold and coral earrings and strings of pearls from the Gulf, and, see!” as she pulled aside her neck-scarf, “here is the necklace of gold beads that was my wedding gift.  We had no hats or bonnets, but wore black lace shawls, or mantillas, to church, or twisted long silk scarfs over our heads to go riding.

“You will think the gentlemen were fine dandies in those Mexican days, when I tell you that they often wore crimson velvet knee trousers trimmed with gold lace, embroidered white shirts, bright green cloth or velvet jackets with rows and rows of silver buttons, and red sashes with long, streaming ends.  Their wide-brimmed sombrero hats were trimmed with silver or gold braid and tassels.  They dressed up their horses with beautiful saddles and bridles of carved leather worked all over with gold or silver thread and gay with silver rosettes or buttons.  Each gentleman wore a large Spanish cloak of rich velvet or embroidered cloth, and if it rained, he threw over his fine clothes a serape, or square woollen blanket with a slit cut in the middle for the head.

“Los Gringos used to laugh at the Mexican and his cloak, and not long after they came the ‘Greasers,’ as the Americans called the young men born here in California, began to wear the ugly clothes the Gringos brought out from Boston.  And so the times changed, children, and our people learned to do everything as the Americans did it and to work hard and save money instead of dancing and idling away the time.