Christmas in the New England country has often been described. The journey to the woods to get the Christmas tree, the making of the wreaths, the cooking of the dinner in the huge ovens, the family gathering to receive presents while the snow whirls outside – all these are features that are shared alike by every New England village during the Yuletide season.

But sometimes a little village departs from the usual custom and does something different. Lakeside, perched on a hill overlooking Bantam Lake, between Bethlehem and Morris, is such a place and its principal community Christmas festival is a peanut shucking and eating contest held each Christmas eve in Slaiby’s, the only general store in the neighborhood. For the past 20 years, Haittm Slaiby, proprietor of the store and a Syrian by birth, has been host for the evening at the peanut parties, which also include ginger ale, soda pop and other soft drinks, with sandwiches thrown in.

“They’re not exactly sandwiches,” says Mr. Slaiby, “but we give them bread and ham and bologna and they eat it any way they want to.”

 

This genial man, who came 38 years ago from the mountains of Lebanon, with it’s soft eastern climate, to seek his fortune in a cold little New England village consisting of a few scattered houses, is now more of New England than a native New Englander. He points out that he has lived in Lakeside longer than he ever lived in Syria. He was only twenty when he landed in New York, a full fledged mason, ready to practice his trade here. Thirty-six years in Lakeside outweigh 20 years in Lebanon considerably and, although Mr. Slaiby has a name which looks strange in the town records and speaks with a considerable accent, he is one of the solid men of Lakeside. Everyone in Bethlehem and Morris and Lakeside and Bantam knows, likes and respects him. Syrians, the natives say, make excellent citizens and good neighbors, as witness the Christmas eve party. Mr. Slaiby says that the peanut festivals started in a small way. One night about 20 years ago, three or four young fellows were in his store on Christmas eve talking and joking around the big round-bellied stove.

Because it was Christmas eve and because the festival means much in his country, Mr. Slaiby dispensed hospitality as a matter of course. He passed around peanuts, ginger ale, and whatever other tidbits the store had to offer. The next year, the young fellows came again and brought their friends with them and thus the party became a fixed thing. Now, Mr. Slaiby says, some of the original group bring their children to shuck peanuts. Some of the others are dead these many years. Old guests drive over from Morris and Litchfield, no matter what the state of the weather, to wish him Merry Christmas and to stand around the stove and chat.

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Thirty or 40 guests are served each Christmas Eve and that number is a huge crowd in Slaiby’s store for, while the building has ample floor space, the proprietor has so much stock that it’s difficult to find a place to stand. There’s everything in Slaiby’s store, from wash boilers to waistcoats, from false faces to fishing rods.

Sometimes, the peanut shells are piled several inches deep on the floor and the old fellows who go to the party in their boots plough through them just as they do through snow drifts. As coal is piled and re-piled on the stove and the store is blue with tobacco smoke and the long bologna sausages grow shorter with the hours, the bearded cracker box philosophers spin their yarns and the younger fry pull their wise cracks. The party generally breaks up at midnight when, with great cranking of flivvers, the guests hurry off to trim their Christmas trees or to attend some other party. Mine host, in his cap and sweater, with tiny icicles glistening on his white moustache and his brown eyes twinkling, stands in the door, waves good bye and calls an invitation to come again next year. Then the guests hurry off over the white and glistening snow (if there is any snow) and perhaps, meet Santa Claus on the way.

Not much like his first Christmas eve in this country are Mr. Slaiby’s Christmas parties. He landed in New York in September, 1892 and went to Maryland where he remained for two years, engaging for a time in the masonry trade which he had learned in Syria. He didn’t know a word of English and he didn’t know a soul to speak to that first Christmas eve. Perhaps that’s why he gives his parties now, so that no one in Lakeside will feel utterly alone on such a joyous holiday.

Mr. Slaiby remembers little about his life in Syria that is not connected with hard work. At the age of ten, he was apprenticed to a mason and was a full fledged mason himself long before he was 20. He started to save as soon as he started to earn money because he was determined to come to America and seek his fortune here. When he finally boarded the boat that was to take him to this country, he had $200 in his pocket. This was a fortune to an immigrant in 1892, so his arrival in New York was more cheerful than that of many of his compatriots. At least he had a little capital to start in business.

After staying two years in Maryland, he began to wander around the country and through some strange fate, reached Lakeside. He doesn’t know why he picked the village to settle down in, but he did. There were only three houses in the place, there was no post office, and people had to go to Morris, West Morris or Litchfield when they wanted to shop. Mr. Slaiby had added quite a little to his original $200 during his two years in Maryland and he made up his mind to go into the dry goods business. Of the three houses in Lakeside, one was a very old dilapidated dwelling that had probably been built before the Revolutionary war. He bought it and moved in. Then he bought dry goods and various notions. He didn’t know anything about them but he just plunged in blindly and acquired a stock for himself. The stock at hand, he bought a wagon and a pair of horses and began traveling around the countryside offering his wares from door to door. He was welcome too. The farm wives who couldn’t take a day from their tasks to drive miles to a shop were glad to buy their calico, their wash boilers or their blankets from Mr. Slaiby.

For two years he sold his goods from door to door, acquiring the good will and friendship of a large number of customers. Then he decided to build a store in Lakeside. First he erected a small building, doing the masonry work himself, and laid in a small stock. Gradually, as demands increased he increased his building and his stock. Now the store is a rambling upstairs and downstairs affair where one may purchase ginger ale, tin pans, lamp chimneys, axes, flour, wash tubs, wringers, vegetables, gloves, oranges, sweaters, blankets, canned goods, automobile accessories, bologna, ham, kerosene oil, castor oil, pins, needles, thread, caps, boots, rubbers, shoes, horse blankets – and anything else that a farmer might want or that anyone could mention.

“Business?” says Mr. Slaiby, “oh it’s pretty good. I have so many different things that when I can’t sell one thing, I can sell something else. My business is bigger, if anything, in winter than in summer. The summer visitors to Bantam Lake bring some, of course, but I have had a steady trade since the days when there was nothing but one old barn on Deer island. The same families that began trading with me 35 years ago are still my customers.”

One of the memories that the 20-year-old Haittm Slaiby brought with him from Lebanon to Lakeside was that of a young girl he had known at home. Members of her family and his had intermarried and some of her relatives were in America. When the next group of them decided to come over they brought her with them. Before Haittm left his native land he had an idea that some such thing would happen so when the girl of his dreams arrived in this country he asked her if she would go to Lakeside and marry him. Her relatives took her to the little village and she and Mr. Slaiby drove to Litchfield when they were married by Father Skelly. They returned to the little house he had bought on his arrival and began housekeeping. Their five children were born there, although long ago Mr. Slaiby built a fine big roomy house behind the original one which is now being used to store wood. He says he is going to tear it down soon but he will not do it without a feeling of regret because it represents the years when he and his wife worked so hard to lay the foundations of their family fortune and found time, besides, to identify themselves with the life of the town.

When Mr. Slaiby arrived in Lakeside he was the only Syrian there. He liked the place so much that he induced first, one brother, and then another, to join him. They are now living in Morris. He also induced his three sisters to come to this country and two of them are married and living in Lakeville. The third lives in Maryland and where one of his married daughters also resides. He is extremely proud of his two grandchildren who are being brought up in the state where their grandfather did his first work in America. At the present time, there are a number of Syrian families scattered around Lakeside, Morris, West Morris and Bethlehem. They are relatives or friends of relatives of Mr. Slaiby, the first of his race to settle in the village and the originator of an original and friendly way of spreading good cheer at Christmastide.

Source: This was re-typed from a newspaper article dated about 1930. It was found in a scrapbook kept by Mary Throop Waugh. Her scrapbooks are now a part of the Waugh Family Collection in the Morris Historical Society archives.