A Manson Family Christmas

just a Yuletide story about your favorite commune / cult / crime syndicate for the holidays

Did the Manson Family celebrate Christmas? Sure they did. And while we know of no specific festive parties, stockings hung around Death Valley with care, or Charles Manson dressed up like Santa, we do know what members of the Family did for the Christmases they were together.

1967

After being released in March 1967 from a Southern California federal prison (where he served nearly seven years on check forging charges), Charles Manson went north to San Francisco and the Haight / Ashbury district. There, he found his groove among the manic street preachers and the Diggers — a collective of street performers who fed the homeless youth, often pillaging from dumpsters (and inspiring the later Freegan movement). But within weeks of his arrival in the Bay, Charlie met assistant librarian Mary Brunner. Mary, originally from Wisconsin, was living in a small apartment with her pet poodle Muffet. She was soft-hearted and when she heard Charlie’s tale of woe, she invited him to stay with her. Within weeks, the two had become lovers. Within two months, they had added a third: Lynette ‘Squeaky’ Fromme, thus beginning not only a polyamorous relationship but the start of the infamous Manson Family.

Charlie, Mary and Lyn traded for a VW microbus and began traveling around the state. By the end of the year, they had swapped the VW for an old school bus which they then painted black. They hit the road again, this…