Pittsfield's 'Christmas Angels' Thank Fire, Police
 Three generations of elusive Christmas Angels have been keeping Pittsfield's finest stocked with sweets on Christmas eve. |
We made it pretty far in the snow, me in my awkward church loafers. They had to come searching us. I vaguely remember a snowmobile being involved.
Oh how the grown-ups loved to tease, for years to come. "Remember when you guys tried to walk to the North Pole?"
Of course, we weren't really trying to get to the North Pole. We were kids. Armed with what I had every reason to believe was sound intel from NORAD, we set out on a path to intercept. We were looking for the best wide-open, remote field to spot him from, close enough to inhabited areas to be along his route but far enough from the ambient light to give us a clear sky to view him from. In retrospect, we were following sound UFO-hunting methodology.
This year, I got to repeat this experience, after a fashion.
The "Christmas Angel" tradition, as it's called, was a local Christmas Eve tradition I'd been familiar with for some time as a longtime purveyor of mysteries and obscure regional folkways.
As I'd heard it from various informants, every Dec. 24 evening going back to the 1980s, a person or persons, frequently children, would bring in doughnuts to each of Pittsfield's five fire stations and the police station. Usually this would be accompanied by a note thanking them for their dedicated service through the holidays.
With my numerous firefighter relatives and latent tendency for Santa-stalking, I'd become intrigued by the bits and pieces I'd heard about this annual tradition. Armed with rumors and guesses much less convincing than the authoritative North American Aerospace Defense Command data of my childhood questing, I set out Christmas eve to see if I could find out a little more.
I was able to confirm a large order of doughnuts was picked up at a Tyler Street bakery on Saturday morning. Six boxes exactly.
From what I knew of past years, there was a certain window of time within which this whole delivery took place. First I stopped at the Peck's Road fire station, where Ken, the officer in charge said they hadn't yet received any doughnuts "yet," though he had heard of it happening.
"I think they're called the Christmas Angels or something," Ken said. He said it had been a number of years since he had worked on Christmas eve, so he couldn't really remember the details. He mentioned that he believed someone else had dropped off some cookies earlier.
I arrived at West Housatonic Street only to find that the elusive treat-giver had already come and gone. The officer in charge told me firefighters were "looking forward to tearing into them tomorrow."
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I had just missed them there, too, but by mere minutes. A firefighter named Tony showed me the still-sealed box of doughnuts that had just arrived, along with a note from "the Christmas Angel." The box and note, Tony said, were dropped off by a young boy around 4 or 5 in a Santa hat, accompanied by a young man he presumed to be his father.
"It was cute. It was real cute."
Descriptions gathered that night of those seen suggested that neither had probably been alive when the Pittsfield tradition is said to have begun.
The note began, "It seems like only yesterday when the Christmas Angel and young helpers began a Christmas tradition of providing a small token of thanke to those servants in our community who, as a part of their calling, put their very lives at risk ... ."
The letter went on to point out at some length how the work these public servants do is more than just another job, and those who do it are rarely in it for the pay check.
"At this time of year the Christmas Angel and the third generation of helpers wish you all well with the hopes that the New Year keeps you safe, healthy and well."
At that point, I figured I had maybe one last shot at catching up to them, if they'd done a loop around the outlying city to end downtown at either fire department headquarters or the police station. It's what I would do.
So it was that coming around the corner of Columbus Street and Center, I caught a glimpse of what I believe to have been the Christmas Angel phenomenon.
All I can say officially, without compromising the source of my investigation, is this: Aaawww.
Signs are that the phenomenon is catching, too. At several of the locations I went to, another man and his son had brought plates of cookies a few hours earlier.
What I learned this Christmas eve is that this quiet, unassuming tradition of symbolically looking out for our emergency workers is bigger than any of its helper participants. Of course, I never really set out to "unmask" the legendary Christmas Angel. I'm just grateful for the opportunity to get the feeling of chasing Santa one more time.
A very Merry Christmas to all.
