Although Averett has observed numerous holidays over the years, none are better documented through photos and artifacts than the annual Christmas celebrations. Please enjoy clicking through the image gallery below for a tour of Christmas' past at Averett.
Please note: the images are of various sizes. If you don't see the right and left arrows, please scroll further down!
(This gallery includes all 12 images and captions from the "Archives Advent Calendar" blog series from 2023, along with numerous additional images.)
An array of preserved Christmas cards and gift tags, received by student Aline Hutchinson in 1920 or 1921, were preserved in a scrapbook donated to the archives. They provide a sweet example of the types of holiday greetings that would have circulated on campus in bygone years.
A yearly tradition at mid-century, students would go caroling through the neighborhoods in mid-December before leaving for the holidays.
Carolers would be sure to stop at the homes of local faculty and staff, including that of then President Curtis Bishop, living in the house now known as Alumni Hall.
Organized by the Averett Christian Student Union, "White Christmas" was a yearly tradition which provided a night of holiday songs, stories, and gifts, for a group of children in need each December. In this image we see numerous students walking across the stage, each placing a gift under the tree.
Six children from the Virginia Baptist Children's Home (now HopeTree Family Services in Salem, VA) are 'adopted' for the weekend by Averett's Baptist Student Union in 1961.
The Chanticleer identified the visiting students as Elizabeth Granger, Darrell Bruce, Fay Collins, Dany King, David Wainwright, and Charles Crowder.
Although the "White Christmas" celebration for needy children was a regular event, this weekend 'adoption' appears to have been a one-time occurrence.
Still in its original clamshell packaging, this Averett College branded ornament (a clear plastic globe filled with blue and gold ribbon) was available for $9.99 in the Averett gift shop at some point in the latter half of the 1990s.
The hallway on the third floor of Main Hall, as it appeared in December 1964.
For many years, Averett held a competition between each of the floors of the college dormitories. Faculty and staff would visit the decorated hallways and declare a yearly winner.
In this undated photo from the early 1960s (probably Christmas of 1960 or 1961), students sing Christmas carols in their decorated dorm hallway. Note the flute accompaniment being provided by the student seated just to the left of the tree.
Each year, resident students would compete, floor-by-floor, for the best hallways Christmas decorations.
Although no evidence survives on which dormitory floor won the 1954 competition, other students would certainly have been hard pressed to outshine this glittery display of "Angels from the Realms of Glory."
During his years as the Averett Art teacher, Carson Davenport made his own Christmas cards. While many were simply abstract pictures of houses in a typical Davenport style, he would occasionally create spectacular prints directly related to holiday iconography. The "Noel" card, featuring trumpeting angels, is my personal favorite piece, with stark and angular black and white imagery that wouldn't be out of place in an indie comic book from the 1990s.
The Averett archives hold copies of numerous Davenport Christmas cards. Please make an appointment with the archivist if you would like to see more. He is always happy to show them off.
Numerous formal dinners, especially holiday dinners, were common each year at Averett back when it was a women's junior college. For the Christmas dinner of 1936, students were treated to:
Students pose in a decorated dining hall prior to Christmas dinner, held at 6:30pm on December 14th, 1940.
According to a preserved menu, gracing the table this year would have been:
This photo includes no other identifying information other than the year. However, the fact that the display is located in the gym, rather than in the dorm halls, implies that this was part of the decorations for the year's formal Christmas dance, which was titled "Winter Wonderland.
Though formal dances were common during Averett's years as a women's college, 1967 is one of the few years where direct evidence survives that a Christmas Dance was part of the Christmas Dinner evening.
The theme for the year was "Winter Wonderland" (a broad theme which didn't needlessly restrict display concepts; see previous slide) and the festivities went on from 6pm until midnight.
Santa Claus (Averett alum Gary Johnson) visits with a child during the "White Christmas" festivities in 1977.
A visit from Santa was one of the many regular elements of the yearly "White Christmas" program.
This image was used on the cover of winter 1977 issue of the old Averett alumni magazine Potpourri.
In extant photos, Christmas trees appear, as one might expect, in any imaginable campus location - including dorm hallways, the gym, the auditorium, and the faculty lounge.
Unfortunately, neither the student nor the location of this tree have been identified. If any of our readers think they recognize the surroundings in this photo, please let the archivist know!
(Although the colored bows on most images were merely decorative additions for the 2023 Archives Advent Calendar, this one had a purpose: it is covering a piece of cropping tape which had been used as guidance for trimming the photo for use in the 1972 Pendulum yearbook.)
In the days when Averett was a women's college, Averett students would be cast as various individuals from the Christmas story and arrange themselves in tableau while choral arrangements were performed. This nativity performance was a yearly tradition for decades.
This year included, among others not pictured:
The angel is either Joyce Jones (from Chatham), Joan Fisher (from Danville), or Jane Critzer (from Afton).
An array of preserved Christmas cards and gift tags, received by student Aline Hutchinson in 1920 or 1921, were preserved in a scrapbook donated to the archives. They provide a sweet example of the types of holiday greetings that would have circulated on campus in bygone years.
A yearly tradition at mid-century, students would go caroling through the neighborhoods in mid-December before leaving for the holidays.
Carolers would be sure to stop at the homes of local faculty and staff, including that of then President Curtis Bishop, living in the house now known as Alumni Hall.
Organized by the Averett Christian Student Union, "White Christmas" was a yearly tradition which provided a night of holiday songs, stories, and gifts, for a group of children in need each December. In this image we see numerous students walking across the stage, each placing a gift under the tree.
Six children from the Virginia Baptist Children's Home (now HopeTree Family Services in Salem, VA) are 'adopted' for the weekend by Averett's Baptist Student Union in 1961.
The Chanticleer identified the visiting students as Elizabeth Granger, Darrell Bruce, Fay Collins, Dany King, David Wainwright, and Charles Crowder.
Although the "White Christmas" celebration for needy children was a regular event, this weekend 'adoption' appears to have been a one-time occurrence.
Still in its original clamshell packaging, this Averett College branded ornament (a clear plastic globe filled with blue and gold ribbon) was available for $9.99 in the Averett gift shop at some point in the latter half of the 1990s.
The hallway on the third floor of Main Hall, as it appeared in December 1964.
For many years, Averett held a competition between each of the floors of the college dormitories. Faculty and staff would visit the decorated hallways and declare a yearly winner.
In this undated photo from the early 1960s (probably Christmas of 1960 or 1961), students sing Christmas carols in their decorated dorm hallway. Note the flute accompaniment being provided by the student seated just to the left of the tree.
Each year, resident students would compete, floor-by-floor, for the best hallways Christmas decorations.
Although no evidence survives on which dormitory floor won the 1954 competition, other students would certainly have been hard pressed to outshine this glittery display of "Angels from the Realms of Glory."
During his years as the Averett Art teacher, Carson Davenport made his own Christmas cards. While many were simply abstract pictures of houses in a typical Davenport style, he would occasionally create spectacular prints directly related to holiday iconography. The "Noel" card, featuring trumpeting angels, is my personal favorite piece, with stark and angular black and white imagery that wouldn't be out of place in an indie comic book from the 1990s.
The Averett archives hold copies of numerous Davenport Christmas cards. Please make an appointment with the archivist if you would like to see more. He is always happy to show them off.
Numerous formal dinners, especially holiday dinners, were common each year at Averett back when it was a women's junior college. For the Christmas dinner of 1936, students were treated to:
Students pose in a decorated dining hall prior to Christmas dinner, held at 6:30pm on December 14th, 1940.
According to a preserved menu, gracing the table this year would have been:
This photo includes no other identifying information other than the year. However, the fact that the display is located in the gym, rather than in the dorm halls, implies that this was part of the decorations for the year's formal Christmas dance, which was titled "Winter Wonderland.
Though formal dances were common during Averett's years as a women's college, 1967 is one of the few years where direct evidence survives that a Christmas Dance was part of the Christmas Dinner evening.
The theme for the year was "Winter Wonderland" (a broad theme which didn't needlessly restrict display concepts; see previous slide) and the festivities went on from 6pm until midnight.
Santa Claus (Averett alum Gary Johnson) visits with a child during the "White Christmas" festivities in 1977.
A visit from Santa was one of the many regular elements of the yearly "White Christmas" program.
This image was used on the cover of winter 1977 issue of the old Averett alumni magazine Potpourri.
In extant photos, Christmas trees appear, as one might expect, in any imaginable campus location - including dorm hallways, the gym, the auditorium, and the faculty lounge.
Unfortunately, neither the student nor the location of this tree have been identified. If any of our readers think they recognize the surroundings in this photo, please let the archivist know!
(Although the colored bows on most images were merely decorative additions for the 2023 Archives Advent Calendar, this one had a purpose: it is covering a piece of cropping tape which had been used as guidance for trimming the photo for use in the 1972 Pendulum yearbook.)
In the days when Averett was a women's college, Averett students would be cast as various individuals from the Christmas story and arrange themselves in tableau while choral arrangements were performed. This nativity performance was a yearly tradition for decades.
This year included, among others not pictured:
The angel is either Joyce Jones (from Chatham), Joan Fisher (from Danville), or Jane Critzer (from Afton).
An array of preserved Christmas cards and gift tags, received by student Aline Hutchinson in 1920 or 1921, were preserved in a scrapbook donated to the archives. They provide a sweet example of the types of holiday greetings that would have circulated on campus in bygone years.
