More than 50 years ago, while having lunch on Tangier Island, Cambridge attorney Ed Nabb discovered that there were no holly or evergreen trees on the secluded isle, due in part to centuries of sustained storms and rising sea levels. It was December of 1968, and with the Christmas season approaching, Nabb, who was also a pilot, soon flew back with two boughs of holly for the citizens of this remote land.
Nabb gave those first offerings to the Swain Memorial Methodist and New Testament churches.
At one, according to published reports, “After receiving the holly, we draped it around the altar in the church, but the children would take the berries off when they were having their Christmas program,” Tangier Island native Virginia Marshall said. “They would become distracted and forget their lines. So, now we place the holly in the church windows and in two white urns outside the church.”