Christmas arrives a little too early in Yellowstone National Park. While December is synonymous with the festival to many, there is a longstanding tradition where the celebrations of the origin came. Christmas in August formerly known as 'Savage Christmas' is an annual tradition in Yellowstone National Park. The celebration includes regular X'Mas tree decorations including Christmas trees, singing Christmas carols, and gift exchanges. Hotels in the park get decorated with all the X'Mas goodies making it look beautiful. Trees are erected in hotel lobbies and they bake fresh cookies. It's a festive season for people, but there are various theories of how the observance came into being.

According to the local legend, visitors who were stranded at Old Faithful Inn due to snow decided to celebrate instead of lamenting. With the snow, the outside world anyway looked like the Christmas season to them. While some say it happened after the turn of the 20th century, others say it occurred in 1939 and others say it occurred in the 1920s.

Originally, the employees called it 'savages', according to the list of Yellowstone Lingo in the 1953 Haynes. Alternately they called it 'Christmas in July' and 'Savage Day'. As the festivities or the happenings were not recorded, late Park historian Aubrey L. Haines had a difficult time tracking down records of what happened in employee housing.

Also, in the late 1940s, Warren W. Ost, an Old Faithful bellman and Princeton divinity student introduced “student ministry” to Yellowstone National Park. Ost would create A Christian Ministry in the National Parks along with fellow student Donald Bower as well as the other ministry members, making the late summer Christmas celebrations popular.

Ost acted as conductor for the Old Faithful Choral Society, and may have imbued it with Yuletide. By 1951, it became an annual tradition from then on until the early 1990s. Also, August 25 marks the anniversary of the National Park Service making it a celebratory time for people at Yellowstone!

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Aug 25, 2020 09:00 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).