Christmas Gift!

In former times, across much of America, the expected greeting on Christmas morning was "Christmas Gift!" This was true especially in the South, but also in parts of Pennsylvania, Ohio and elsewhere. The Dictionary of American Regional English provides details.

I never heard it used myself, but learned about it in the mid-40's from a book a great aunt gave me: Miss Minerva And William Green Hill. The book was written around 1900 by a Memphis schoolteacher, and described a child's life in Southeast Missouri.

The effect of greeting someone with "Christmas Gift!" was not unlike "Trick or Treat!" That is, the person greeted had to give a gift to the person who first uttered the phrase as a greeting. My father, born in 1915, remembered the custom from the 1920's. It had fallen into disuse by the time I lived in Mississippi in the 1940's, replaced by "Merry Christmas" as a greeting.

But the game of catching the other person first and thereby getting a present, had disappeared.

Christmas Gift!