Newspaper Clippings of the Christmas Day

"Illustrated Police News," January 8, 1887, via Newspapers.com

All right, kids, you get three guesses what Aunt Undine is recommending you not do this Christmas Eve.  Let’s start with this item from the “Los Angeles Times,” December 20, 1998:

A 24-year-old man holiday caroling with his church youth group was shot and killed and a second man seriously wounded in a drive-by attack near Compton. Heder Faamausili and about a dozen friends had dropped a holiday basket at the door of two elderly women Friday night, and had finished singing "Silent Night," when the crackle of at least seven shots sent the carolers diving for cover. Faamausili, however, had nowhere to escape on the grassy center median of South Castlegate Avenue, where he had left the group briefly to talk to a neighborhood friend, Ben Leilua, 25. An older gold Cadillac pulled alongside the pair. The driver, saying nothing, leveled a pistol and fired at least seven shots, witnesses said.

Faamausili died three hours later at St. Francis Medical Center in Lynwood. Leilua was recovering at the same hospital Saturday with three gunshot wounds.

The “Miami Herald,” December 26, 1978:

A guitar-strumming Christmas caroler was shot and killed early Monday by a man who crashed a holiday celebration. 

Jesús Gabriel Pagán, 22, was shot in the right temple at such close range that powder burns were left all over his face, police said.  

Pagán died at the scene.  His assailant is still at large.

A rather gruesome example of what happens when you mix Christmas carolers and World War II appeared in the “Buffalo Courier Express,” December 26, 1944:

Raiding Japanese planes interrupted Christmas eve carolers singing “Silent Night” at Gen. MacArthur's headquarters.

Three warning blasts of the air raid alert system failed to halt the singers but they were stilled when the heavy ack-ack batteries opened a torrent of fire.

A cross beam of searchlights caught one enemy plane and illuminated him as bright as tinsel.  Shortly thereafter the intruder burst into flames in mid-air and seemed to hang an instant in the moonlight like the Star of Bethlehem.  Then he dropped into the sea.

Hundreds of GIs watching the sky performance let out a roaring cheer.

Then the imperturbable Wac and GI choristers resumed their caroling, this time with “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas.”

“You can’t beat people like that,” remarked one soldier.

The “Jackson Citizen Patriot,” December 23, 1956:

Royal Oak police Saturday questioned several suspects in the shooting of a 14-year-old girl caroler who was walking with a friend when she was shot in the back.

Cindy Estes, a high school freshman, was described as in good condition at William Beaumont hospital after removal of the bullet. Police suspected a boy or young man may have been the assailant, although they said it was probably no one who knew the girl. A young man who had fired a pistol twice in an alley earlier was still sought.

The girl was walking home from a drugstore, singing Christmas carols with a friend, Virginia Wright, 15, when the shot was fired. The bullet missed Cindy's spine by an inch. 

"Oh, Ginny, I've been shot," she told her friend. Then the girls walked two blocks to Cindy's home before help was summoned.

The “Coshocton Tribune,” December 24, 1974:

CANTON, Ohio (UP) -Judy Lombardi, 10, Canton, was shot in the shoulder by an elderly woman Monday night while Christmas caroling on the city's southeast side. 

Police said the woman had had her purse snatched a couple of weeks ago and apparently mistook the group for vandals. 

The girl, who was on the woman's porch with other youngsters when the shooting occurred, was listed in guarded condition at Aultman Hospital.

Just to show that at least some people had some Christmas common sense (or sense of self-preservation,) I’ll end with this item from the “Illustrated Police News,” December 29, 1888:

Happy Evesham!  In the great city of Birmingham, householders, tormented before their time by hordes of so-called carol singers, have found no comfort but in grumbling and writing to the papers.  But the Mayor of Prince Henry’s little borough has a short way of dealing with such premature celebrations.  He has sharply issued an edict prohibiting out-door carol singing within his jurisdiction until Christmas Eve.  We believe that from time immemorial the Mayor of Evesham has been autocratic in these matters.  To blow a trumpet in any public thoroughfare as a preliminary to giving or receiving of alms, or to mercenarily conduct one’s family devotions at the corners of the streets in distorted versions of Sankey’s hymns, without the express permission of his worship, is an offence for which the offenders may be and are incontinently locked-up or seen over the borough boundary.  We do not know whether such a power resides in the head of a mushroom municipality like Birmingham.  We are afraid if every gutter tootler and proprietor--for so much a head per diem--of a family of squalling ragamuffins had to wait personally upon his worship before commencing operations the mayoralty itself would soon go a-begging.

Merry Christmas, gang!

Just let someone else sing.  And dodge bullets.