On the day after McCulloch composed this letter, TJ’s granddaughter Mary J. Randolph wrote from Monticello to her sister Virginia J. Randolph (Trist) in Richmond describing the holiday celebrations among the enslaved people at Monticello: “this Christmas has passed away hitherto as quietly as I wished & a great deal more so than I expected. I have not had a single application to write passes or done or seen any of the little disagreable business that we generally have to do & except catching the sound of a fiddle yesterday on my way to the smokehouse & getting a glimpse of the fiddler as he stood with half closed eyes & head thrown back with one foot keeping time to his own scraping in the midst of a circle of attentive & admiring auditors I have not seen or heard any thing like Christmas gambols & what is yet more extraordinary have not ordered the death of a single turkey or helped to do execution on a solitary mince pie so you see you lost nothing by being on the road this week & you have gained something by not arriving in Richmond till the end of it since I am told it is the most disagreable part of the year to the white population of the place.” Later in the same letter she remarked that she might “learn latin which grand papa has just been reccomending to me” (RC in NcU: NPT).