Holiday poem from 1920, The McKean County Trust Company:

‘Twas the week before Christmas and all through the town, everybody was busy up Main street and down, all hunting for presents to make their folks glad, for no one at Christmas should ever be sad.

There were some who had money, and some who had none; some spent all their wages — their money all gone. The product got ready some twelve months ago, a Christmas Fund started — the best thing we know.

These bought gloves for mother, and skates for the boy, some ribbons for sister, for baby a toy; for all of their friends, a present or two, bringing joy to their families as all try to do.

Now those whose next Christmas they want full of cheer, let us mention a Christmas fund, started this year. It eliminates worry, it eases the mind, it saves Old Saint Nicholas from falling behind — that is financially.

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Virtual Christmas: This year, many families are opting to stay home for the holidays, citing weather concerns, cost and the inability to get time off of work as some of the reasons. Whatever the reason may be, for those who stay home but want to connect with family, there are options out there.

Thanks to the magic of technology, we can connect with our friends and families in faraway places on a virtual level via apps like Skype, Facetime and WeChat, that allow us to make real time video calls.

Leading tech and gifts review site, GearHungry.com, conducted a survey (3,000) to find out how we are planning to spend Christmas in 2019, and an increasing trend, it seems, is to have a ‘virtual’ one. In fact, a significant 38% of Pennsylvanians are planning on having a virtual Christmas this year — perhaps fed up with overpriced plane tickets home, or not being able to face the traffic on the roads.

The survey revealed that a quarter of people say Christmas is the only time of year they speak with or see family members. In true holiday spirit, Christmas brings people together!

1 in 5 admit that they see family less in person because of video technology.