APAK CHRIST; AS
ADA.IC, ALASKA— Mavymen stationed on this cloud-covered Aleutian
island aren’t sure Santa will be able to find them, but they're
preparing for Christmas just as thoroughly as if St. nick had his
headquarters here.
There's no civilian community on Adak, but the colorful lights
decorating the family housing at the U.S. Naval Station make the is-*
land look like any small town in the U.S. at Christmas. And in the
lobby of the Bering Building, brightly-colored Figures in a Nativity
scene stand as a reminder of the Christmas1season.
For the enlisted men and officers and'their families, the Bering
Galley.will serve a special Christmas Day dinner—roast turkey with
dressing and all the fixin's.
And for the kids, Santa has promised to brave the viilliwaws and
Aleutian storms and make his annual apprearance at the Navy exchange's
toy department with lollipops and balloons.
At the Adak School, which provides educational facilities for 350
elementary and high school students, classes'from the kindergarten
through the sixth grade will resent Christmas programs for parents
and'will hold their own parties.
Children will also nave fun at several Christmas parties given
by women’s organizations on the island.
But on Adak, as everywhere else, Christmas is a time of giving,
too. Adakians have been collecting needles,thimbles, thread and notions
to make Sevang kits for Aleut women on nearby Atka Island. Gifts to the
natives on Atka are a yearly tradition.
The biggest yuletino problem on Adak, though, is to find Christmas
trees. Except for a few shrubs, the island is completely treeless. So
each year, Navy Special Services arranges to have a planeload of fir
trees flown in from Kodiak Island, close to the mainland of Alaska.
The trees are sprayed with fireproffing chemicals and distributed free
to all the families on the island.
As the holiday draws, near, there are the special religious services
at Bering Chapels a Protestant candlelight service, with a long-rehearsed
contata by the choir; Catholic midnight mass and Christmas Day services;
pageants by children in Sunday school. Even in an Isolated outpost at
the edge of the Bering Sea, the spirit of the holiday is not forgotten.
For the Mavymen on Adak, Christmas on this wind-swept island may
not be like going home, but the gaiety of the decorations, the extra
mail planes from the ’States and the island’s holiday spirit will once
again add up to one of the mertiestChristmases in the Navy.