The fir is most commonly mentioned in accounts of the evolution of the Christmas tree. One reason may be that the balsam fir twigs, more than any other evergreen twigs, resemble crosses. Also, fir trees were abundant in the forest areas of western Germany where the custom apparently originated, as well as in New England and New York State here in the U.S. Then too, the word "fir" was widely used to designate several different kinds of cone-bearing trees long before botanical classification became standardized and well known. Even today most people are unable to identify various evergreens, frequently calling all of them "firs" or "pines."
Extracts from the fir, especially balsam fir, were long used for medicinal purposes probably further reason for its early popularity. Certainly the perfume of the balsam fir is one of its out-standing features.
A number of legends, poems, songs, and stories are based on the fir tree. "The Fir Tree" is one of the tales of the famous Danish writer of children's stories, Hans Christian Andersen. And a popular old German folk festival song, "O Tannenbaum," offers a hymn of praise to the fir tree, still favored today
At any rate, if the fir tree, did actually predominate as the early Christmas tree, then our forefathers selected wisely, for the fir is still one of the favorites of today. In this country for many years firs, spruces, and cedars were the common Christmas trees, with balsam fir the unchallenged leader until 1955. The somewhat similar favorite from the West, Douglas-fir, overtook balsam fir in the U.S. about that time.
And since then, the public taste has been shifting more to artificial trees, real firs and pines together account for about 20 percent of the U.S. Christmas trees used in American homes. The artificial copies of these tree types make up about eighty percent of trees displayed.
Scotch pines and Douglas firs and Fraser firs are the three favorite living trees sold in the United States. These three trees make up seventy percent of all living Christmas trees sold in this country today.
A Letter from Denmark Christmas Eve in the Country Long Ago ERIK AND ELSE BY MARTHA C. MOLLER
"Oh, Christmas dear! thy starlight
Can reach the poorest place,
And the eyes of little children
Reflect its gentle rays!"
Mother was singing this verse behind that shut, mysterious door to the room where just now she had finished the decking of the Christmas tree; while the children were in the dining room in the twilight, listening and waiting. "Else, I say, it will really be Christmas Eve now, in a moment, won't it?" Erik said, and he added, "for-tu-nate-ly it will!" with a funny, emphatic stress on that long word, his byword at the time. Erik used it, differently accentuated, on all occasions, both when things were really all right as when he had got into some scrape or other and had barely managed to slink through. Boys are sure to get into a fix sometimes, are not they?
Darkness came on still more. The children, leaning against the window sill, were intently watching "Hans Cowman," the old herdsman, who passed the yard with his swinging lantern that seemed to jerk along the barns, disappearing at last through the stable door.
According to old customs all the cattle of the farm were to have an ample extra supply on Christmas Eve, so that every crib could be full on that holy night.
At length Hans and his lantern vanished into the groom's chamber, through the pane of which the children could see him stand before a broken bit of looking-glass water combing his hair energetically, as the most festive preparation he could think of.
The children's clear-sighted eyes could still discern the "bird's sheaf" on its high pole in the center of the yard. It was an old custom that the birdies should also have their feast during merry Christmas time; and the children were always eager to have that sheaf raised, so that they might run out in o the yard and sing a little verse they knew by heart, intending it to be a kind invitation to the birdies:
"Joy is a guest on earth to-day
With the new-born King from above!
Fly down from the roof, little Sparrow gray,
To a Christmas feast with the Dove!"
But no pressing was needed, for all day long one heard a twitter and a rush of busy, flapping wings, birds flying gladly to and fro. Also the children had been very busy all day long. They had to help their mother in dealing out goods to some poor women who were accustomed to come with their baskets on Christmas Eve and fetch their portions of pork, grits, coffee and white bread. And to the old and sick ones, lying in their beds at home, Else and Erik had taken good parcels and had been recompensed by small bits of sugar candy or some spice nuts, as nobody was allowed to go fasting or empty handed out of any house, lest he should carry Christmas itself out of the house."
Having come back from this round the children had found it most entertaining to stay for awhile in the kitchen, watching Ann, the cook, who was baking quantities of a sort of "apple dumplings," solid and roundish like little balls. Light brown and hot she piled them on earthenware dishes. Heaps of them were required, "for Christmas lasts long.' Besides, each of the servants was entitled to have plenty of his own, the more so as they used them as a sort of "play money," staking them when playing at cards. Nor were the men servants over-particular in the handling of these dear dumplings. For when they had "kept accounts," writing with a piece of chalk on the table top, they would simply wipe it out again with the dumplings, to put them gladly into their trousers' pockets at last.
But the children thought that the servants' hall was a "funny" place, where they liked to go and have a jolly time.
Then Ann began to prepare the festive supper. While the goose was roasting in the oven she cooked the rice pudding, and now came an exciting moment! For the children were allowed themselves to "plum the three almonds into the pudding," and the lucky one who found an almond in his portion while eating it would win the nicest of marcipan things, or even a real present! For last year Else had had a small cup and saucer.
The pudding being done Ann filled an earthen dish from the big pot and made a large butter hole in the center. That was to be supper for "the brownie, "- -on Christmas Eve he must not be forgotten. "And last year he ate up every bit of it!" Ann was most positive about that. Erik ran after Ann to see her place the dish at the hayloft; but, oh, look! what's that? A pair of yellow eyes are shining out from that dark nook near the chaff bin! Erik felt just a bit creepy, but he was comforted by seeing a stiff, gray tail sticking out near the eyes. Aha! it was only Pussy!
Indeed, there was no doubt about that porridge being eaten up, "every bit of it."
There was still another thing which on Christmas Eve ought never to be forgotten, the placing of a burning candle on the window sill of the lobby. For nobody must be out of doors, poor and forsaken, on this holy night; nobody must walk his lonely way home- less and sorrowful! Therefore lights are burning behind clear panes in the scattered houses; starlike they are shining out brightly into the darkness, as a kind welcome to every wanderer.
All these things came into the children's mind again, while waiting; but just when they were beginning to feel almost a little sad, a lamp was brought in and the maidservants entered, so nice and smart in their clean, white aprons. The coachman, Jens, and the water-combed Hans were following sedately.
At this very moment the doors to the big room flew open and there it stood, that wonderful Christmas tree! It was illuminated with lights, hung with tiny red apples, and its branches were covered with sparkling silver threads!
A joyful yet solemn feeling reigned in the room at first, while mother played the hymns and all the others sang them, walking around the tree.
Father then made the children look at the golden star at the top of the tree, which was to remind us, he said, of the Bethlehem star leading people to find the sweet Christ-child. And then the children's exultant joy broke forth irresistibly, and each ran to find his own gifts. Erik's eyes grew bigger and bigger at the sight of a veritable rocking-horse.
"Hurrah! fortunately I have got it!" he cried. Be sure he was in the saddle at once, and how glad he felt you will see from the picture! Little Else had the sweetest baby doll, with a cherry mouth, oh, such a dear! And so very convenient that the baby brought its own bottle and bag.
Also Hans Andersen's fairy tales with their funny pictures were there, and heaps of other lovely things. They laughed and chatted and made such a noise!
Baby sister only sat perfectly still, near mother; she stared incessantly at the tree, the lights of which were reflected in her big, blue eyes.
At last the Christmas candles burned down and the happiest night of all the year had come to an end.
The children were about to go to bed. The horse had been stabled for the night close to Erik's bed, so near that his hand could hold the rein. Else, on her bare feet, stole to the window once more to stare out into the darkness, a habit dear to her as to most true coun- try children. There was a star gleaming faintly above the big old lime tree, and Erik, from his bed, suggested it might even be "the Beth- lehem star itself." "No," Else said, "I think that one was greater and far more radiant, to guide the shepherds. Mind, father said one day that all children might come to see it!"
Yes, for-tu-nate-ly," it came in a sleepy voice from the trellis bed; and shortly after- wards Erik was sound asleep, his brown little fist squeezing the rein of the rocking-horse.
At daybreak on Christmas Day all the church bells were ringing, and the organ was playing while people sang the old hymn:
"All bells on Christmas morning blest
Are chiming for the Royal Guest,
Who would on men, so poor and low,
His gifts of peace and joy bestow!"
This is a DoJi Film: A Modern Christmas in Denmark.
These charming folk are still traditionally sold at Christmas markets in and around Nuremberg. However, our photos below where once made by immigrant children who brought the tradition to America and although the old things don't always become popular here - these ideas can morph into other things that we recognize today...
To make an edible prune figure for Christmas day, gather the following together first from the market: dried dates, figs, prunes, raisins and a walnut for your character's head. You will also need strong and very clean wire plus a wooden platform, scrap fabrics, hand held drill and acrylic paints.
Step-by-Step Instructions:
First cut a base from a clean log or purchase a wooden round from a dollar tree. Take time to refinish this wooden base in a way that you like it best, because you may wish to reused it year after year. Drill two holes into the base wherever your prune man or woman will stand just beneath their foot placement.
Now construct the prune man's body using food-grade stainless steel wire that is both non-toxic and rust-resistant. Give him legs made by poking one wire each into three prunes. Repeat the step for the second leg and firmly push the foot ends down into the holes made in the wooden display base.
Now twist the two legs at the top ends around a torso wire where the hip joints meet the main body.
Neatly poke four to five figs onto the single connecting wire, the size of your figure will dictate how many figs are needed. Some people prefer a torso made in the same way using dates instead of figs, this is dependent upon what you have available or what you may prefer to eat.
Now twist onto the torso wire a single long wire for the two arms, leaving a little wire at the top for attaching either a walnut head or a citrus fruit head.
The arms may be made of more prunes or even raisins or cranberries if you prefer.
Have an adult drill a small hole at the base of an English walnut so that the head may slip onto the end of the wire.
Paint a funny face on the walnut or orange using non-toxic acrylic paints. The head does not need to be 'cracked' open for eating if you would like to save it for another prune man in the future. Once you have decided to eat the dried fruit, simply store the head away inside of a recycled cookie tin for another year.
Use bits of trim and scrap fabric to make clothing and hats for your prune people; the more details you add, the cuter he or she will look. It has been said that keeping your prune man till Epiphany will bring good luck and wealth for the coming new year.
German immigrant children in America made these prune men to celebrate both the
Fall Harvest and Christmas in 1927. Top left, a german couple going to market, top
right, a man in his sleeping attire carries and candle and broom, Bottom left, is a
What season can it be but Christmas Eve, When drowsy Nature's icy fingers weave Such pure delights in frost-bound earth and sky As warm the heart and captivate the eye? The sunset burns across blue-shadowed snow And gilds the trees, all blackened, with its glow; The azure heaven sparkles as it fades To deeper hues that herald nightly shades. In all the bracing air a gladness floats, As sweet as music from the swelling throats Of summer birds, and Nature's children feel A witchery of concord o'er them steal Deserting burrow, nest and hollow tree, In fur and feathers, Little Folks in glee Dance down the meadow path and forest lane, And thoughts of cruel traps and guns disdain. To many a festal tree their gambols lead, Where stored against the barren winter's need The golden corn and rosy apples peep From drifts of snow in luscious, tempting heap. In jolly circles round and round they go In step to merry shout of Jay and Crow, And whistle of the Red-bird, as they flash Among the trees in many a headlong dash. Perhaps they do not know 'tis Christmas Eve, Nor in its vague enchantment sweet believe, But on this day they feast without a fear, Who live as foes thro' all the changing year, Till stars look down with laughing eyes that seem To send a joyful message on each beam.
The Illustrated Printable Copy Below
Lovely illustrated poem in color of forest animals.
Children may collect all nine if these lovely paper dolls (some are pictured together) from the Creative Commons. Each paper doll represents a character in the traditional Christmas Crèche. The restored illustrations are not to be redistributed from alternative collections or sold for profits. What is a Crèche? A painting, diorama, display or sculpture representing the birth of Jesus. After you have printed them out on your home computer, color and cut them, arrange and paste the figures neatly inside a box. Add even more blue or purple paint to the box for the night sky and glitter for the endless stars. Collect straw or grass to arrange about the figures. Place the diorama on a table or beneath the Christmas tree in your home.
Angel figure with outstretched arms and wings.
"Displaying a creche, a scene showing the Bethlehem stable at the birth of Christ, is one modern Christmas custom tied directly to Jesus' birth. Other decorations - candles, garlands, bright ornaments, holly, mistletoe and even the Christmas tree - stem from other customs and or from legends.
The tableau of the Christmas creche is an effort to tell again the story of the birth of Jesus in a manger. More than 700 years ago, St. Francis of Assisi made such a model to help make the story more real for Italian boys and girls. Since then many others have been made, some of them rare and expensive art treasures, some simple and lovingly made at home.
One by one, we bring you figures which you can put into your own Christmas creche. Above you can see how to arrange them after cutting the figures out, mounting them on cardboard, and coloring these in.
The angel is to be hung above the creche scene. This may be done by putting a thread or cord through the two holes at the top of her wings. Use a hole punch for this."
The children visit Santa's garden of toys in their sleep at night!
ONCE upon a time there were two children, a little boy named Willie and a little girl named Annie. Now, they could hardly wait for Santa Claus to visit them, so every day they would say to their mother, "Oh, Mother, how many days until Christmas? Must we wait a whole month, Mother? Twenty days more, ten days more, only five days more - how slowly the days drag on, Mother!" Now, the busy mother felt the time slip by all too rapidly, but the children counted the days on the calendar and grew more and more impatient each day. At last they shouted in glee, "Santa Claus will visit us to-night, and to-morrow is Merry Christmas!" They borrowed the longest, strongest stockings which they could find, and when their mother came to tuck them snugly in bed and to kiss them good-night, Willie said, "Do you know, Mother, I'm going to prop my eyelids wide open and watch all night for Santa Claus." "So am I" said Annie, "and when he comes down the chimney, we will ask him where he gets all the toys." "Oh, no, you must go right to sleep and he will come all the faster," answered the mother, as she turned out the lights and left the nursery. After she had gone downstairs, Willie whispered to Annie, "Say, Annie, are you awake?'' Yes, I am, but I'm getting so sleepy I wish he would hurry and come right now. Let's sing our Christmas carols for him." And so the two children sang all the songs they knew. "My, it does seem so long to wait. I am most asleep," said Willie, with a big yawn. "I tell you, we can take turns - you watch for him awhile, Annie, and then I shall." After a time Annie called out, "Willie, I'm so sleepy; it's your turn to watch." But she received no answer. The next thing they knew, Annie and Willie were away up in the North Pole country, with snow and ice around them on all sides, and right in front of them stood a high ice-wall. "How I wish we could go through this wall," said Willie, and just as he said this the ice seemed to open and there was a great gateway leading into the strangest garden that you ever heard of in all your life. It was a garden all of toys, and Annie and Willie could hardly believe their eyes as they saw the wonders about them. Hanging right over the wall there appeared to be something growing like morning-glories. When they looked again the children saw that they were not morning-glories at all, but small, toy talking-machines, while on a trumpet-vine nearby they saw growing, like flowers, real toy trumpets. Willie picked a trumpet at once and played on it: ''Toot-toot-toot-toot-too-oo-o.'' Oh, you must not touch the toys, Willie,'' gasped poor Annie in fright. ''We don't know who owns this garden.'' Just then the children saw the gardener of this wonderful land of toys. He was the merriest old man, dressed all in red, and his coat and hat were trimmed with ermine. His hair and beard were as white as the snow and his cheeks were like red, rosy apples, while his eyes twinkled like stars. The children knew who this gardener was at once, you may be sure. Why, it was Santa Claus, of course! He was cutting down a crop of whistles with his sickle. He had a large, red sack at his side and smaller bags nearby, and he was so happy that he sang as he worked:
"In my wonderful garden of toys Grows a crop for the good girls and boys. Dolls, cannon, and drums, Candy cake, sugar plums - All grow in my garden of toys.''
He was just ready to make up another verse when he spied the two children. ''Oh, ho, ho, ho!'' he laughed merrily, ''how did you two children come here?'' Please, Mr. Santa Claus,'' said Willie shyly, ''we were waiting for you to visit us and the next thing we knew we were in this garden. We don't know how we came here, but, now that we are here, may we not help you to pick some toys?'' ''Indeed, you may,'' said Santa Claus. ''I need two such helpers. I was just wondering how I could gather all these toys in time for tomorrow. Willie, will you please go over to the garden-bed in the corner and pull up some tops?'' ''Pull up some tops!'' echoed Willie in amazement. But he took a red sack and went to the garden and began to pull up toy tops. There were large tops growing like turnips and little tops growing like beets and radishes. There were all kinds of tops; some would humm-humm-humm-m-m and make music while Willie pulled them up. Next, Willie climbed a tree and began to pick red marbles growing just like cherries; and he found purple and blue marbles growing on a trellis, just like grapes - so he filled many small bags with marbles. He also climbed other trees where he thought he saw apples and oranges growing, but, when he came near them, he found different-colored balls - so he picked a bag of balls for Santa. "Santa, may I help too?" asked Annie. Indeed you may, my child,'' he answered. How should you like to pick dollies?'' So all this time Annie was busy getting him dollies, and she was very happy. "You dear, dear dollies!'' Annie said, as she hugged each one in turn. ''How happy all the little girls will be when they find these dollies Christmas morning!'' There were large dolls with the cutest bonnets on their heads, growing just like roses, and other dollies with the dearest pointed hats, growing up like tall holly-hocks. And then there were tiny dollies like pansies turning their pretty little faces up toward Annie. Presently Santa Claus began to water the grass and suddenly every blade of grass was a tiny tin soldier with his musket erectly held, while soldiers - tents, like mushrooms, sprang up all around. Sail-boats, steam-boats, motor-boats, row-boats and canoes were all out on a lake nearby, but they could never sink, for the lake was a large looking-glass, and fishes, ducks and swans were swimming on looking-glass streams. The children rushed from one garden to another and saw so many things to pick that they were kept very busy helping Santa Claus. "Oh, see those pumpkins and squashes over there on those vines!'' exclaimed Willie, but when he went to pick them he found drums, large and small, and foot-balls and basket-balls lying on the ground, like melons and pumpkins turned brown. "Whee-ee-ee-ee! Isn't this jolly! See those funny brown leaves blowing in the wind," called Annie. "They are all sizes and shapes." When the children came near to pick them, they found no leaves at all, but brown Teddy- bears with their arms and feet out-stretched. The children hugged them in their arms and the Teddy-bears gave little squeaks of glee, for they were so glad to be gathered in with this harvest of toys. Suddenly, overhead, the children heard a whirr-whirr-whirring noise, and when they looked up it seemed as if great swarms of dragon-flies and butterflies were hovering over them. "Ha, ha, ha!'' laughed Santa Claus, as he watched the surprised children. "Those are new toys; they only lately have come to my land - but, here, take these butterfly nets and try to catch a few of them." And when Annie and Willie brought these toys down a little nearer, they saw that they were not dragonflies or butterflies, but toy airplanes. Tiny, toy trains went gliding over steel rails, across switches, under tunnels, over bridges, and stopped at stations, quite like really, truly trains. "How should you like to see my farm?'' asked Santa Claus. And the next thing Annie and Willie knew they were in a toy land barnyard. Houses, fences and barns with stalls for horses and cows, and everything as complete as a real farm. Horses rocked to and fro or rolled about on wheels; toy lambs, so wooly and white, said, "Baa-baa-baa,'' when their heads were turned to one side. There was also a menagerie of wild animals nearby. Elephants and tigers, lions and monkeys - more animals than you can tell about were there, and they looked so real that at first Annie felt like running to hide behind Santa Claus. Then Santa Claus led them through toy villages and they really felt like giants when they looked down on all the dolls‚ houses and different stores, toy theaters, toy post-offices, toy grocery stores, meat markets, and in all these stores were dolls for clerks and dolls for customers. Then Santa Claus took them far away from the villages, out through the orchard where the sugar-plum trees were growing, and after they had filled many bags with candy he led them out to the Christmas tree forest. Here they found Christmas trees growing with gold and silver tinsel and hung with glass balls and chains, while tiny, colored lights were twinkling through the branches. Santa Claus had to gather these trees and pack them with great care. The next thing the children knew, Santa Claus had taken them right into his home. There they saw a dear old lady with snow-white hair who was sewing on some dolls clothes. She was dressing some of the dollies that had sprung up without any clothes. It was Mrs. Santa Claus, of course, and as she hugged and kissed the children she said to Santa Claus, ''The dears, where did you find them?'' "Out in the garden," answered Santa Claus. ''I don't know how they came here, but they are excellent helpers. They have been helping me to gather my toys. I shall soon be ready now, after I do a little more work in my shop. You know, my dear, I must first test my winding toys, for that clock-work machinery does break so easily.'' As he talked, Santa Claus took off his cap and coat, rolled up his sleeves and went right to work. He wound and tested each toy, and Willie helped him by handing him the keys for each one. There was a honk-honk-honk , a toot- toot- toot, a chug, chug. chug , and a clang , clang , clang , as automobiles, boats, engines, fire-engines and all kinds of mechanical toys went running about the shop like mad. Next Santa was working with his saw and plane, his hammer and nails, and with a rap and a tap he finished the roof of a doll's house. Mrs. Santa had dressed all the dolls and furnished the dolls' houses. "What a cute little kitchen!" exclaimed Annie. "Oh, Willie, do you see this dining-room and the cunning parlor and this little bed-room? How I should love to play dolls in this house!" Then Annie turned to Mrs. Santa Claus and said, ''May help you? I could thread your needles or help in some other way?" Why, so you may, my dear,'' answered Mrs. Santa Claus. ''My eyes are getting old and if you will thread my needles it will be a great help." So Annie threaded needles and helped Mrs. Santa Claus to dress the last doll and then to pack all the clothes in a new doll's trunk. Santa Claus sat at his desk and finished writing a story and drawing the last pictures when suddenly the clock struck, Ding- dong-ding. Twelve times it struck and Mrs. Santa Claus said, ''It is time you were up and away, sir.'' She helped Santa Claus into his big cloak and he pulled on his high boots and his warm gloves and pulled his cap down over his ears. Just then the reindeer were heard prancing and pawing outside, impatient to be off and away. Santa Claus bundled his big pack of toys into his sleigh and put in all his Christmas trees. He kissed Mrs. Santa on both cheeks, and with a big smack on the lips called out "Good-by, Mother," and, picking up Annie and Willie as if they were live dolls, tucked one under each arm and dashed out to the magic sleigh. They seemed fairly happy to fly through the air, and the moon and the stars seemed to dance in the sky as they went on faster and faster. Then they came down nearer and nearer to earth where the lights in the great city gleamed like fireflies far below. The next thing Annie and Willie knew, they were on the roof of their own home. The next thing they knew, they were down, down the chimney and - there they were right in their own, little beds! The sunlight was streaming into their eyes and their mother was calling, ''Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas, little sleepy heads!'' Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!'' they both shouted, as they bounced out of bed and rushed for their stockings which were fairly bulging with toys, and Annie was soon hugging and kissing a new dolly while Willie was blowing a new trumpet. In the other room stood a large Christmas tree which had come from the Christmas tree forest. "Oh, we know where these toys came from,'' said Willie. ''They came from the garden of toys, for we visited Santa Claus Land last night.'' Now, tonight, when you go to bed, close your eyes tightly and go to sleep and I am sure you too can pay a visit to Santa Claus Land. by G. Faulkner
Christmas morning long ago. The children playing parlor games near the Christmas tree.
Christmas never brings San Francisco children any snow. Santa Claus has to leave his sleigh and reindeer behind him in the muddy roads, and take to his good stout legs in order to bring the little San Franciscans their toys and sweet- meats. Jack Frost makes few calls and very short stops, so that the boys and girls who live in the sunshine that rests upon the Golden Gate find it hard to understand the Eastern tradition of Christmas cold and Christmas snows. The fields and forests in their pure white robes, the cold star-lit heavens at night, the noon-day sun sparkling in a million tiny ice-crystals, the merry skaters on the frozen lake or river, the sleds hurtling down the long coast, the jingling sleigh bells, the images and forts and caves our young builders construct out of the thawing snow, - all these the San Francisco boy has never known.
It occasionally happens that a sudden snowfall on the mountains on the opposite side of the bay robes Monte Diablo and her sister ranges in a shimmering white veil, and the whole population of the city looks eagerly across the water at the novel and beautiful spectacle. And, once, years ago, a genuine snow-storm swept over San Francisco and made its people, young and old, wild with excitement and glee. It was comical to see staid old merchants and other grown-ups rush out, grasp handfuls of the frosty mixture and pelt each other with it, frolicking like a lot of New England schoolboys, while the San Francisco children, at first astonished and half-afraid at the unfamiliar sight, soon caught the contagion of the hour, and entered with enthusiasm into what would probably be their only opportunity to know the joys of a real winter. With shouts and laughter the boys tumbled about in the snow, improvised sleds, piled up mimic forts, pelted each other and the passers-by; in short, behaved much like the children of more frigid latitudes. The girls were quite as excited as the boys, romping and shouting in their glee, and snow-balling each other and their friends. The few workers who ventured out had a hard time of it. They were pelted and rolled in the snow-drifts until they looked more like Eskimos than Celestials.
But this was one experience in a life-time for a San Francisco child. In all its recorded history since the white man became a dweller by the Golden Gate this was the only occasion when a real snow-storm visited it, while it has never known a snowy Christmas. In December as in mid-summer the rose-bushes are covered with blossoms white and red, the climbing fuchsias swing their purple bells, smilax, heliotrope, geranium and calla lilies bloom in the garden. The poet E. R. Sill, looking at the floral loveliness of such a winter from his Berkeley windows fronting the Golden Gate, sings his wonder:
"Can this be Christmas? - Sweet as May,
With drowsy sun and dreamy air,
And new grass pointing out the way
For flowers to follow everywhere.
O wondrous gift, in goodness given,
Each hour anew our eyes to greet,
An earth so fair - so close to Heaven,
'Twas trodden by the Master's feet."
Once upon a time, a number of us, teachers in the Pilgrim Sunday-school of San Francisco, sat in conference and planned our coming Christmas festival. We had some four hundred children to provide for; as bright and happy a lot as ever were gathered within a Sunday-school.
Every year, a great Christmas festival was held in a public hall, to which the children and their friends were invited, and the proceeds of which paid nearly the entire expenses of the school for the ensuing year. We had about completed our arrangements. The tree, the gifts, the music, the tableaux, the addresses, the supper, all had been assigned to efficient committees. Only one feature remained for discussion, - the proper entrance and introduction of Santa Claus, who had never yet failed to appear at our feast. We had well-nigh exhausted, in previous years, the various possible methods of introducing the good old saint. One year, we had him pop up suddenly through a trap door on the stage; once, he came tumbling down a great chimney-piece; and, once again, he arrived just in the nick of time, and stood waving us a welcome high above our heads, from whence he climbed down nimbly on a rope, hand under hand, to the screaming delight of the children, but to the serious derangement of his pack and his stomach. But, now, we were at an end with our devices.
"I have it!" said Fred Gummer. "Let's stick to the old tradition, and have him dragged into the hall in a sleigh drawn by deer."
"But you forget," rejoined our wise-headed and devoted superintendent, Horace Davis, smiling behind his glasses, - "you forget that Santa always leaves his turn-out behind him, and trudges to San Francisco on foot."
"Very true," answered Fred; "but I know a mountaineer who has just brought to town two live deer. They are quite tame, and we can obtain their use for the evening. A neat sleigh, with little rollers hidden under the runners, can be built, and fitted up with buffalo robes, bells, etc.; thus equipped, Kriss Kringle can for once enter the hall in a state becoming his dignity."
All declared this to be a capital suggestion, and it was at once adopted.
"Now, if we could only arrange as easily for a snow-storm that evening," said Elizabeth Easton, one of our most loyal teachers, "the thing would be complete."
"And why not?" cried Charlie W.
"Leave that to me. I have a notion on the subject, and can promise you a genuine snowfall."
And to this also all agreed.
The next day, two or three of us, who had been let into the secret, went to a book-binder, and arranged for a large supply of the long and narrow clippings of paper which are shaved off in the process of making up a book. Then, at a Chinese employment office, we hired two stout gentlemen, who were set to work in an upper loft of a friend's store. Each person was furnished with a large pair of shears, glittering and sharp. As neither of them could understand a word of our language, with many gestures and grimaces they were instructed to sit by a huge heap of the paper clippings, and cut them into little pieces, or flakes, letting these fall into a packing-box before them. Both Hop Lee and Wo Fun stolidly set to work. They patiently snipped away all that day and the next, until their hands were too weary to hold the shears. It was not an inspiring task, but they performed it with religious exaltation and awe. For it is their custom to prepare such small bits of paper inscribed with sacred Chinese characters by their priests, and to throw them by handfuls into the air or burn them, in order to ward off the evil spirits which they believe are ever hovering about to do them harm. So our temporary employees felt they were assisting at a religious ceremony of sorts; and who, re-recalling what our Christmas celebration is, shall say that they were not?
The afternoon of Christmas day came at last; and Piatt's Hall was filled with a large and noisy company of little ones, romping, dancing, shouting, and trooping down to the cavernous-looking supper room below. On the stage, behind a huge screen, stood the Christmas tree, a tremendous specimen of its kind. As the day wore on the older folk arrived, and presently the exercises began. The children lustily sang their Christmas carols, the young men and women surpassed themselves in tableaux and shadow pantomimes, and between the acts the children danced to merry music. In the meantime, a half dozen of us, each with a bag full of paper snow-flakes on his shoulders, found our way up over the ceiling of the hall, and crept, candle in hand, across the slender rafters. The space was so low we could not stand upright. A single misstep, and our foot would go crashing through the lath and mortar ceiling, and hang like a signal of distress over the heads of the audience below. "How hot it is up here!" grumbled Charlie Murdock. "My snow will melt before I get to my position." "Be careful that you don't set fire to your snow with that candle," cried another. So, with laughter and retort, we each crawled to one of the great ventilators through which the heated air escaped from the hall below; and, dumping our pile of flakes conveniently near it, we stretched out on the rafters, peered down at the spectacle beneath us, and awaited the signal at which we were to begin snowing.
It was a pretty sight we gazed down upon, the great hall glittering with lights and filled with a brilliant and ever-shifting company, the children circling in the merry dance or standing in eager groups awaiting the arrival of Santa Claus. Surrounded by a company of friends and parishioners, stood the minister of the church, stalwart Horatio Stebbins, then not long arrived in California, but already a conspicuous figure.
On the fringe of the crowd, a slender, dark-haired man with laughing eyes stood nervously twitching his glossy mustache, or bent to listen to his children's prattle. Who among all that great company would have dreamed that this shy and as yet little known man, Frank Bret Harte, was in coming years to confer such luster on his adopted State, Immortalizing in tale and poem the beauty and romance of California, even as Starr King embodied for us in his brilliant oratory and martyr life the patriotism and loyalty of that land of sunshine and gold. And there, too, the central figure who brought order and purpose Into all the confusion and noise, was our genial superintendent, even more at home among the children than on the floor of Congress where, in after years, he made for himself an honorable record.
All this and more we gazed down upon from our high perch. But, now, the music came to a sudden stop. The children eagerly crowded up to the front of the stage, the screen was drawn aside, and there stood the giant Christmas tree, glittering with lights, strung with goodies, shining with its mimic silver and gold, and loaded with gifts for all. The general "Ah!" that greeted its glories soon swelled to shrill cries of delight as with cheery shout and jingling bells old Santa Claus came driving into the hall in his well-stocked sleigh, drawn by two pretty, bounding deer. The children gathered around their old friend as he nimbly descended and gave them a hearty greeting. But wonders were never to cease that happy night. As the orchestra struck up the Sleigh-bell Polka, the very heavens above seemed to open, and for once at least in the annals of a San Francisco Christmas it snowed. Oh, how it did snow! At first, a few flakes fluttered down furtively, then more and faster, and faster and more furiously still, till the whole room seemed full of the tiny messengers of purity. They settled down on the tree with its glittering lights, on the beard of the good old saint, on the merry children who jumped up to catch them as they fell and sought to press them together into snowballs, while the old folk declared: "Yes, this reminds us of the scenes of our youth. This is something like what Christmas used to be." Meanwhile, we, having finished our task, brushed the dust and cobwebs from each other and descended, well pleased at having increased the festival joy of the children, and given San Francisco her first Christmas snow-storm.
Two bent snowflakes made using white pipe cleaners.
The only materials you will need to make this snowflake craft are pipe cleaners or chenille stems. However, I used a hot glue gun to attach the silver beads in random places. Because these ornaments reminded me of icing on Christmas cookies, I thought that the faux "dragees" or sugar pearls would make a nice decorative touch on the snowy swirls of icing.
Encourage your children to spend time bending their designs! Soon you'll have more snowflakes for the tree than you need. Give them a challenge to make the craft more interesting like: 'who can make the snowflake with the most points' or 'who can make the snowflake with the most swirls'
The wire constructions don't need to hang on the Christmas tree, these could be strung across a window, or hung from a mobile, or be used to decorate a banister on the staircase of your home.
Teachers could use this economical craft to introduce a lesson on the infinite patterns found in snowflakes. Or save the idea for a snow day when kids cannot go to school; it's easy to keep a bag of chenille stems tucked away in a cupboard or drawer for just such an occasion.
"I have the most attractive showcase in the store. Lovely colored blocks in sturdy pull wagons, take-apart toys, big pileup ones, mosaics, puppets--these are displayed in it. At Christmas time my circle is the most popular place in town. How busy I am, then! Sometimes my back aches. Sometimes my feet throb. Then I think of the brand-new father who purchased ''baby's first toy,'' or the proud uncle who saved and saved these twenty-two dollars, to get ''everything a kid of eight would like,'' or I think of the earnest couple who wanted to the '' best educational toy money can buy-under four dollars,'' exclaiming in wonder before the ever-purpose "Treasure Castle.'' When I think of the bright Christmas look these wore, I forget my aching back and my throbbing feet, and am glad only that my cramped fingers are still not too cramped to go on, writing ''letters to Santa Claus'' because Christmas people ARE different from the people of May or July or November! There is Attorney L., a hard, close-fisted man. He examined my display on Tuesday, and after much thought selected an impractical toy train for his infant grandchild. After the package was on its way I discovered that I had sent the wrong item, on Attorney L. had definitely rejected! With what tremulo I watched him approach on Thursday! And with what surprise I returned his seasonal greeting, and heard him commend me on my wiser choice, and re-order, in addition, the floor train! Oh Christmas Spirit that does things to people! They forget themselves. They remember their childhood pleasure at receiving gifts, their youthful, enthusiastic thanks for "just what I wanted!" The warm, adult thrill that comes over them even now when someone has been thoughtful. They want others to experience the same emotions. They want approval, Isn't that true of all of us? If we could live May and July and November in the spirit of one seeking it, we would be emulating Christ, that Gift Beyond Human Comprehension. O God, when I think of the few I can help to Christmas happiness with my shining windows of cheer, or with my pennies dropped into the chimney of the gaunt corner Santa---representative of those whose meagre hearths cannot replenish at my showcase of toys or pay for a letter out of my book--I wonder. But when I think of the Gift of thy love, transcending these other things, I know that the richest hearths are not always those crowded with the things money can buy... And my heart is full beyond expression of THANK YOU FOR CHRISTMAS! Grace Churchill, Age 20
The only way to visit old Salem of the old South is with a child's heart for luggage. Otherwise this old town in the middle of North Carolina may lie before your eyes actual enough, with its old streets, its old houses, its old Square, its old Home Church as its inmost core, and Salem may welcome you with the gentle, unobtrusive courtesy pecularily its own, but unless you have learned the wisdom that knows how to put away grown-up things, you cannot really enter the Christmas city.
In Salem of all places I have ever seen, it is easiest to drop from one's shoulders the crippling pack of maturity and become once again a little child stepping along a Christmas road. Of all places it is easiest in Salem to forget the jangle of faiths and of no-faiths that have deadened our ears, to slip away from the clamor of an age proud and fevered as ancient Rome, and to listen to the confidence of old carols ringing along moonlit dreamy streets, mysterious with the black of magnolia and of boxwood, or to hear floating down from the church belfry high up under the stars the silver melody of the ancient horns which, better than any other instruments, express the soul of the Moravian church. A most musical religion it must seem to every visitor who yields his spirit to the spirit of Moravian Salem. Not only the church liturgy but also the everyday life of the community is keyed to old tunes that date back, some of them, to the Bohemia of five centuries ago, and were familiar in Moravian households in the days when John Huss was martyred for the beauty of his faith. There is a spell on southern Salem, the spell not of a dead past but of a living one, constantly revitalized, so that as one walks these uneven red-brick pavements, one is haunted by memories of long-past Christmases, thoughts of those far times, when in secrecy and fear, the Hidden Seed kept its feast of candles and of anthems, thoughts of happier festivals in Saxony where young Count Zinzendorf offered the heretics the refuge city of Herrnhut, thoughts of brave long-ago love-feasts right here, when a tiny, intrepid band of colonists sang its Christmas chorales in the midst of endless miles of wilderness, while wolves nosed and howled at the cabin door. Along with these Moravian memories come thronging recollections of one's own childhood Christmases in all their unforgotten wizardry, so that here in Christmas Salem, I seem to be walking again the midnight aisle which leads through a great wood of fir trees looming black beneath high stars.
Just as at five years old, I am aware again of mystery and danger and bewilderment lurking far off in the forest, but along the Christmas roadway, there is no fear, only joy and magic, for it lies straight as a shaft of silver through the black wood, and along it troops of youngsters go dancing onward. At the instant that the children pass, each dark, bordering fir tree becomes bright with tinsel and candles, and along the spicy twigs gay little bells stir and tinkle. From time to time there come snatches of happy chants echoed among the tall dim trunks. Since the wayfarers are children, they know that the soft, unearthly radiance upon the road before them is the long beam from a star not yet seen because it hangs so low above a stable cave, and they know, too, that their silver path is leading all child feet toward that star. Small difference for children between that spirit-light of Bethlehem and the merry twinkle of Christmas-tree candles. For them, readily enough, their own carol-singing mingles with the voices of herald angels, and even Santa Claus, himself, all ruddy and kind, may steal to the stable door and gaze in on a divine baby. Even so is Christmas faith and Christmas fancy interwoven in old Salem, where white-headed men and women still have their Christmas trees, and still with their own hands construct beneath the green boughs, the wonderful Christmas " putzes," for while we who are visitors must retread in stumbling unfamiliarity the Christmas path, the Moravians of old Salem have always kept straight and clear within their hearts the child-road toward the star.
When, a few days before Christmas, I arrived in Salem, people told me I had missed what for Moravians is always the opening key to the Yuletide season. For unnumbered years there has always been sung on the Sunday before Christmas the anthem of " The Morning Star," written in the latter seventeenth century, and set to music in the nineteenth. Although I never heard choir and congregation unite in its mighty joy, I seemed, during my two weeks' visit, always to be catching itsechoes, as if the strains of Christmas minstrels had come floating back to me where, unseen in the distance, they had passed on before along the silver-lit highway, so that the words and the music of "The Morning Star " voice for me the innermost spirit of a Moravian Christmas.
The anthem has both the quaintness of old Germany and the vigorous confidence of the new world, so that the old words and the new are equally expressive of the unchanging faith of present-day Salem, while the music vibrates with the sheer child-gladness of its praise.
" Morgenstern auf finstre Nacht, Der die Welt voll Freude macht.
Jesulein, O komm herein, Leucht in meines Hertzens Shrein."
When in stanza two, music and words swell out into grandeur it is as if, out of the black forest mystery of life, some hidden joyous congregation suddenly pealed forth a psalm to the mounting Christmas dawn:
" Morning star, thy glory bright Far exceeds the sun's clear light ; Jesus be, constantly. More than thousand suns to me."
For the holiday guest there slowly emerges upon that glamorous woodland roadway of his child memories a silver-lighted city, gradually shaping into the everyday reality of actual Salem. As I look out from the window of the little gray cottage that harbors me, there become sharply etched against the mistiness of dreams the tall water-oaks of the old red-brick Square, the domes of boxwood against old walls of buff stucco or of brick, the stretching flat white rows of gravestones holly-trimmed, the white belfry of the Home Church, where in Christmas week I heard little boys, high up there in the soft December sunshine, sound the trombone announcement of death. So unobtrusive and yet so sweet were those strains out of the sky, so blent with the Christmas air, that I listened to them for some time, supposing them merely carol-singing floating out from some home where the family had regathered for Christmas.
On one side the little cottage looks forth on the sunny graveyard where Moravians keep their dead too close to life for any sadness, and on the other it nestles to the prouder, taller buildings ofthe Square, laid out in the seventeen-sixties by founders who established Salem as the central city of their Wachovian grant of seventy thousand acres, to be built and to be kept a city meet for their faith. The solid eighteenth century houses still remain, skilfully adapted to modern usage, or unobtrusively altered. Half of Salem traces its ancestry back to those earlier days, and all of Salem keeps alive, both in family life and in public, the traditions and the customs of its unforgotten builders.
Perhaps it is only in our own South that so gentle and half-romantic a faith could have found so gracious a flowering as is typified in the Easter and the Christmas customs of this Salem of North Carolina. There is a blending of native warmth and glow and kindliness in the spirit of this Southern Province of the Moravian Church. The first colonists came seeking a mild climate and friendly neighbors, and found both. For a hundred and fifty years Salem has been true to its first purpose. Long ago it was a little refuge city of peace in the wilderness, and still, today, it offers its benediction for all who seek to penetrate beyond the mere externals of a locality into the inner sanctities of tradition.
Long ago a brave little band kept to their secure daily round of work and worship amid perils of Indian attack and the backwash of Continental armies, and freely gave their hospitality to everyone that asked it, and today the mind of those first settlers still dominates and molds the life of the city. Yesterday and now the people of Salem have possessed both the art of shrewd adjustment to the contemporary and the power to withdraw from all its fever and conflict into the peace of a child-faith. With quaint literalness those early founders looked upon themselves as all members of one family, and today one of the strongest impressions of any visitor is that of a great household, close-bound in sympathy, and all turning toward the old Home Church as to a central hearthside, while up and down the worn old streets there moves the form of one still young at eighty, who in himself is host and shepherd and father of all the city.
One wonders if the inhabitants of Salem fully realize their high privilege of living in a community which both expresses their religion and preserves the finest traditions of their ancestors. In these bewildering days it is the lot of most idealists to live in a solitude, unable, amid the surrounding mists, to distinguish the shapes of their fellow believers. But in Salem people have the sacred advantage of dwelling with those who constantly share and reinforce each other's faith as naturally as they have shared each other's childhood and each other's memories of the old Infant School. Probably Moravians do not dream with what strange nostalgia a visitor listens to persons who treat God conversationally, who talk of Him as spontaneously as a little boy speaks of that splendid comrade he calls Daddy. Normally enough, naturally enough, has the Moravian spirit been able to strike deep roots in our own South, for in our South religion is still a custom unquestioned, and leisure can still be found for an obsolete, old-world culture, and intellect still bows in reverence before the soul. In old Salem of the old South there can be no blur upon the radiant confidence of the Christmas story, no smirch upon the silver purity of that far-lit path toward Bethlehem's cave.
In Salem I feel myself to be sometimes in Cranford, sometimes in Barchester, while all reminiscence of those two familiar home-towns of the fancy is touched by an atmosphere sacred to Salem. From one window of my room I can gaze up the long, silent avenue, forbidden to all vehicles, that skirts the high ivy-hung picket fence of the graveyard. Even in December the graveyard grass is vivid in the sunshine. I am so near that I can almost see the crimson berries of the holly wreaths laid on the little flat marble slabs. Cedar Avenue lies as a white path at the heart of Salem. On one side of it are gateways whose sunny arches, blazoned with texts of hope, stand bright against the shadowy spruce and cedar massed beyond the triumphant marching lines of the little gravestones. Along Cedar Avenue I have watched a funeral procession move with confident tread, while the trombone strains floated forth delicate and clear upon the New Year's morning.
Another window of my room looks toward the old Square, toward the Bishop's home beside the Bishop's church, toward the aging buildings that still bear names witnessing to the deep Moravian reverence for the family as a holy entity, - the Sisters' House, the House of the Single Brethren, the Widows' House. In the cavernous cellar of the most venerable of all these buildings I was shown, one afternoon, the mysteries of the Christmas candle-making. In those great, white-washed catacombs one peers into dark, haunted corridors through wall arches three feet deep. The floor has the stone flagging that was laid a hundred and fifty years ago. In the long kitchen of the Single Brethren the great, hooded fireplace with its built-in Dutch oven stands intact.
Here, in precisely the same molds and with precisely the same methods through unbroken generations, have been made the famous Christmas candles of Salem. The molds hold, some of them, six candles, some a dozen. Into the manufacture last year went two hundred pounds of beeswax and fifty pounds of tallow. From the first melting to the final polishing each candle requires an elaborateprocess of handwork. It took two women six weeks to make the candles, achieving, as they did, six thousand five hundred of the slender wisps of green wax familiar to everyone who has ever known a Salem Christmas. The decorating of the candles, as well as the dipping, is a matter of far tradition. According to methods of cutting and of pasting long in use, each candle is encircled by an outstanding fringe of scarlet paper before it is at last stuck in its hole in one of the long trays and borne off to be kept for the love-feast of Christmas Eve. To visitors and to Moravians take the preparation of the candles is symbolic; when Salem trusts to alien hands the making and the decorating of its Christmas candles, Salem will not be Salem any more.
A simple, vital reverence for tradition is as characteristic of each individual home as it is of the larger home life of the church congregation. In the tiny cottage that offers me hospitality there is a little wooden rocking chair carefully treasured. One turns it up to find on the bottom, in a handwriting too alive ever to be forgotten, these words, "This rocker was used by mother to rock all her nine babies to sleep from 1828-1844. Keep it in the family." There lies on this little chair a touch of that personal, homey immortality that the home-going dead must value, - and yet it is only a little wooden rocker, tawny drab, and finely lined like an old parchment - or an old face. It has no arms, therefore had no bumps for little heads. It has spreading legs and rockers, and on each rocker is painted a bunch of fading wild roses.
All the little home is gentle with old memories. Each morning at the close of breakfast I listen first to the daily reading from the Moravian Textbook for the year, the custom of the Text-book dating back to Count Zinzendorf, and after the Text-book comes the reading from birthday and memory books. As I listen, a kindly past made up of small family events becomes vital for me, the guest. Yet the little cottage is alive to the present as well as to the past. The neighbor children blow in and out all ruddy with ball-playing. The Moravian is a children's church, its services crowded with jolly youngsters, seated as happily beside their parents as seedlings grow around a tree. To Moravian children the story of a children's Friend is no dead tale. The rosy seven-year-old Harold who comes flying so often to our door has a hearty affection for Santa Claus, but with that Other he is even more familiar. A few weeks before this last Christmas a little playmate died. Harold was puzzled by the sorrow of the grown-ups and protested, "But Louise has gone to Jesus, and she will be there for His birthday." Winifred Kirkland, 1924
Left, the snowman before his features are glued on and painted. Right, the finished result.
This little snowman balances snowballs and one tiny red bird on his arms and hat. He has faux black coal bits for eyes and buttons and a bright orange carrot for a nose. He's a jolly cute addition for any Christmas tree this holiday season.
Supply List:
Q-tips
white cotton balls
white school glue
paper egg carton
acrylic paints: orange, green, red and black
masking tape
newsprint
wire for the hanger
scissors
transparent glitter
Step-by-Step Instructions:
crush three balls from the newsprint and cover these with masking tape.
Tape the snowball body parts together.
Poke holes where ever you would like his arms to be with the tip of your scissors.
Squeeze a generous portion of white glue into these holes and press the Q-tip arms inside the cavities. Let the body dry.
Unravel a generous portion of white cotton balls.
Apply white glue to the masked surfaces of your snow persons body and wrap the cotton around the form excluding the O-tip arms.
Apply maybe three to four layers of cotton batting always layering it with white glue.
Cut a little paper cap from the egg carton and glue this to the top of his head.
shape a carrot nose, coal eyes and buttons, plus snowballs and a small bird from the cotton batting. Ad small amounts to the batting as you do this and let these tiny parts dry.
Glue on the miniature features and let the snowman dry thoroughly before painting him.
Paint his features using fast drying paints.
Apply one last coat of white glue to his body and sprinkle on top some transparent glitter.
My snowman is finished and hangs on the Christmas tree
branch very careful not to drop and single snowball.
" With antics and with fooleries, with shouting and with laughter,
They fill the streets of Burgos aud the Devil he comes after. "
In Spain, the land of romance and song, of frost and flowers, where at Yule-tide the mountains wear a mantle of pure white snow while flowers bloom gaily in field and garden, the season's observance approaches more nearly than in any other country to the old Roman Saturnalia.
The Celts who taught the Spaniards the love of ballads and song left some traces of the sun-worshipers' traditions, but they are few in comparison with those of other European countries. Spain is a land apparently out of the line of Wodin's travel and influence, where one looks in vainfor the mysterious mistletoe, the pretty holly, and the joyful Christmas tree.
The season is rigidly observed in churches, but otherwise it loses its spirit of devotion in that of wild revelry. Music, mirth, and hilarity are the leading features of the occasion, and home and family pleasures are secondary affairs.
Of course the customs vary in different provinces, some of which still cling to primitive forms of observance while others are fast adopting those of foreign residents and becoming Continental in style. But everywhere throughout the land Christmas is the day of days, the great church festival observed by all.
The Noche-buena or Good Night, preceding Christmas, finds the shops gay with sweets and fancy goods suitable for holiday wear, but not with the pretty gifts such as circulate from home to home in northern countries, for here gifts are not generally exchanged.
Doctors, ministers, and landlords receive their yearly gifts of turkeys, cakes, and produce from their dependents, but the love of presenting dainty Christmas gifts has not reached! the land of the three C's the Cid, Cervantes, and Columbus.
Do you know what you would probably do if you were a dark-cheeked Spanish lad named Miguel, or a bright-eyed, lighthearted Spanish maiden named Dolores?
If you were Miguel you would don your black jacket and brown trousers, knot your brightest kerchief around your neck, and with your guitar in hand you would hasten forth to enjoy the fun that prevails in every street of every town in Spain on Christmas Eve, or, as it is known there, the Noche-buena.
If you were pretty Dolores you would surely wear your red or yellow skirt, or else of striped red and yellow, your best embroidered velvet jacket, handed down from mother to daughter, and a wonderful sample of the handiwork that once made the country famous, your numerous necklaces and other ornaments. You would carefully braid your heavy dark tresses and bedeck your shapely head with bright flowers, then with your panderetta or tambourine in hand, you too would join the merry throng that fill the air with mirthful songs and music on Noche-buena; for remember,
" This is the eve of Christmas.
No sleep from now till morn."
The air is full of the spirit of unrest, castanets click joyously, tambourines jingle their silvery strains, while guitars and other musical instruments help to swell the babel of sound preceding the hour of the midnight mass:
" At twelve will the child be born,"
and if you have not already done some especially good deed to some fellow mortal, you will hasten to clear your conscience by such an act before the bells announce the hour of its birth. As the stars appear in the heavens, tiny oil lamps are lighted in every house, and among all devout Roman Catholics the image of the Virgin is illuminated with a taper.
Christmas Festivity in Seville.
The streets, which in many cities are brilliantly lighted with electricity, are crowded with turkeys awaiting purchasers. They are great fat birds that have been brought in from the country and together with quacking ducks and cooing pigeons help to swell the sounds that fill the clear, balmy air. Streets and market-places are crowded with live stock, while every other available spot is piled high with delicious fruit; golden oranges, sober-hued dates, and indispensable olives; and scattered among these are cheeses of all shapes and kinds, sweetmeats of all sorts, the choice candies that are brought from various provinces, and quaint pigskins of wine. No wonder every one who can do so hurries forth into the street on Noche-buena.
If you are not tempted to stop and gaze at these appetizing exhibits, you will pass quickly on to the brightly lighted booths devoted to toys. Oh, what a feast for young eyes ! Here yours will surely light on some coveted treasure. It may be an ordinary toy, a drum, a horn, or it may be a Holy Manger, Shepherds, The Wise Men, or even a Star of the East.
It is hard to keep one's purse closed among such a surfeit of tempting articles, and everywhere money flows freely from hand to hand, although the Spanish are usually very frugal.
As the bells clang out the hour of midnight, you will hurry to join the throng wending its way to the nearest church, where priests in their gorgeous robes, some of them worn only on this occasion and precious with rare embroidery and valuable jewels, perform the midnight or cock-crow mass, and where the choir and the priests chant a sweet Christmas hymn together. What if it is late when the service ends? Christmas Eve without dancing is not to be thought of in Spain. So you go forth to find a group of Gipsy dancers who are always on hand to participate in this great festival; or you watch the graceful Spanish maiden in her fluffy skirts of lace, with her deep pointed bodice, a bright flower in her coal-black hair beside the tall comb, and her exquisitely shaped arms adorned with heavy bracelets. " Oh, what magnificent eyes! What exquisite long lashes! " you exclaim to yourself. See her poise an instant with the grace of a sylph, one slippered foot just touching the floor, then click, click, sound the castanets, as they have sounded for upwards of two thousand years and are likely to do for two thousand more, for their inspiriting click seems necessary to move Spanish feet and give grace to the uplifted arms. At first she may favor you with the energetic fandango, or the butterfly- like bolero, but on Christmas Eve the Jota is the universal favorite. It is danced and sung to music which has been brought down to the present time unwritten, and which was passed from mouth to mouth through many generations. Translated the words read:
"Of Jesus the Nativity is celebrated everywhere,
Everywhere reigns contentment, everywhere
reigns pleasure,"
the audience joining in the refrain:
"Long live merrymaking, for this is a day of rejoicing,
And may the perfume of pleasure sweeten our existence."
It will probably be late into the morning before the singing, dancing, thoughtless crowd turns homeward to rest, and although it is certainly a crowd intoxicated with pleasure, it is never in that condition from liquor.
There are three masses on Christmas Day, and all devout Catholics attend one of them at least, if not all. In some places Nativity plays are given on Christmas Eve or else on Christmas Day. They are long performances, but never tedious to the audiences, because the scenes appeal to them with the force of absolute realism. On Christmas morning the postmen, telegraph boys, and employees of various vocations, present to their employers and others little leaflets containing a verse appropriate to the day, or the single sentence " A Happy Christmas," expecting to receive in return a Christmas box filled with goodies of some kind.
While Spanish children do not have the Christmas tree to gather around they do have the pretty Nacimiento, made of plaster and representing the place of Christ's nativity, with the manger, tiny men and women, trees, and animals, such as are supposed to have existed at the time and place of the Nativity. The Nacimiento (meaning being born) is lighted with candles, and little folks dance happily around it to the music of tambourines and their own sweet voices, joyously singing one of the pretty Nativity songs. Groups of children go about the streets singing these songs of which there are many.
In this pleasing custom of the Nacimiento one sees a vestige of the Saturnalia, for during that festival small earthenware figures used to be for sale for the pleasure of children. Although the Spanish race is a mixed one and various peoples have been in power from time to time, at one period the country was, with the exception of Basque, entirely Romanized. It is interesting to note the lingering influence of this mighty Roman nation and find in this century that some of the main features of the great Roman feast are retained in the great Christian feast at Yuletide.
Southern races were always firm believers in Fate. The Mohammedans reverenced the Tree of Fate, but the Romans held sacred the urn containing the messages of Fate. So the Spaniards cling to the urn, from which at Christmas gatherings of friends it is the custom to draw the names of the men and women whom Fate ordains shall be devoted friends during the year, the men performing all the duties of lovers. Tin's drawing of one's Fate for the coming year creates great merriment and often no little disappointment. But Fate is inexorable and what is to be must be, so the Spanish maiden accepts graciously the one Fate thus assigns her.
After the midday breakfast on Christmas morning the people usually seek out- of-door pleasures. Among many of the old families only blood relations are expected to eat and drink together on this holy day.
Night of Marvels by Violante Do Ceo
Ordinarily the Spaniard " may find perfect entertainment in a crust of bread and a bit of garlic " as the proverb claims, but at Yule-tide his stomach demands many delicacies peculiar to the season. The Puchero Olla, the national dish for dinner, must have a few extra ingredients added on this occasion. The usual compound of chickens, capons, bacon, mutton, beef, pig's feet, lard, garlic, and everything else the larder affords, is quite insufficient to be boiled together on this occasion. However, if one has no relatives to invite him to a feast, it is an easy matter to secure a Christmas dinner on the streets, where men are ready to cook for him over their braseros of charcoal and venders are near at hand to offer preserved fruits, the famous almond rock, almond soup, truffled turkey, or the most desirable of the season's delicacies, sea-bream, which is brought from Cadiz especially for Christmas use, and which is eaten at Christmas in accordance with the old- time custom. Nuts of all kinds are abundant. By the side of the streets, venders of chestnuts the finest in the world lean against their clumsy two- wheeled carts, picturesque in costumes that are ragged and soiled from long service. Rich layer-cakes of preserves, having almond icing with fruits and liquor-filled ornaments of sugar on top, are frequently sent from friend to friend for dinner.
In Seville, and possibly in other places, the people hurry to the cathedral early in the afternoon in order to secure good places before the high altar from which to view the Siexes, or dances. Yes, dances I This ceremony takes place about five o'clock just as the daylight fades and night draws near. Ten choristers and dancers, indiscriminately termed Siexes, appear before the altar clad in the costume of Seventeenth-Century pages, and reverently and with great earnestness sing and dance an old-time minuet, with castanet accompaniment, of course. The opening song is inhonor of the Virgin, beginning:
" Hail, O Virgin, most pure arid beautiful."
Among the ancients dancing was a part of religious services, but it is now seldom seen in churches. This Christmas dance, given in a beautiful cathedral just at the close of day, is a very impressive ceremony and forms a fitting close to the Spanish Christmas, which is so largely made up of customs peculiar to ancient and modern races.
In every part of Spain song and dance form an important part of the festivities of Yule-tide, which lasts two weeks, although the laboring class observe but two days of pleasure. At the palace the Kingholds a reception on New Year's, not for the public generally, but for the diplomats and grandees.
The higher circles of society observe New Year as a time of exchanging calls and visiting, feasting and merrymaking. At the banquets of the wealthy every possible delicacy in the way of food is temptingly displayed, and great elegance in dress indulged in by the ladies, who wear their finest gowns and adorn themselves in priceless jewels and rare laces. But there is so much etiquette to be observed among this class of Spaniards that one looks for the real enjoyment of the season among the common classes.
In some parts of Spain bull-fights are given as late as December, but cold weather has a softening effect on the poor bulls and makes them less ferocious, so unless the season proves unusually warm that favorite entertainment has to be abandoned for a time. Meanwhile in the streets and homes one may often see a father on all fours enacting the infuriated bull for his little sons to attack; in this way he teaches them the envied art of bull-fighting. The Yule-tide festivities end at Twelfth Day, Epiphany, when crowds of young folks go from gate to gate in the cities to meet the Magi, and after much merriment they come to the conclusion that the Magi will not appear until the following year. by Mary P. Pringle and Clara A. Urann
