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.
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
It was away back in the time of Alexander the Great that Germany was made known to the civilized world by an adventurous sailor named Pytheas, a man of more than ordinary talent, who was sailing northward and discovered a land inhabited by a then unknown people. He reported his discovery to the Romans, but the difficulty was that Pytheas had seen so much more than any of the Greeks or Romans of those days that they utterly refused to believe his statements. Time has proved that the sailor was nearer right in many of his apparently visionary statements than his countrymen dreamed, although it has taken centuries to prove the fact in some cases.
The people whom Pytheas then introduced to the polite world were Teutons, a branch of the great Aryan race and closely related to the early English. The men were simple, truthful, and brave, but were sadly addicted to drink, it was said, and consequently were often quarrelsome. The women were much like those of to-day in their characteristics: virtuous, proud, and dignified; very beautiful, with golden-hued hair, blue eyes, and fresh, fair complexions. Like most of the early peoples, the Teutons worshiped gods and goddesses, and so have many customs and traditions in common with other branches of the Aryans,
If England has enjoyed the merriest Yule-tides of the past, certainly Germany enjoys the merriest of the present, for in no other country is the day so fully and heartily observed. It is the great occasion of the year and means much to the people.
For a week or more before the day, loads of evergreen trees of all sizes may be seen coming into the cities and towns to be piled up in squares and open places until the entire place looks like a forest of small firs. One wonders where they all come from and for how many years the supply will last, but it is not likely to fail at present.
Toy-making in Germany. How the rough figures are chipped from the wooden
ring coming from the cross-section of a tree.
The Lutherans gave Martin Luther the credit of introducing the Christmas tree into Germany. He may have helped to make it popular, but certainly there is abundant evidence to prove that it was known long before the Reformer's time. It is generally supposed to have its origin in mythological times and to be a vestige of the marvelous tree, Yggdrasil.
Possibly Martin Luther thought of the old story of the tree and imagined, as he traveled alone one cold night, how pretty the snow-laden fir-trees along his path would look could they be lighted by the twinkling stars overhead. But whether he had anything to do with it or not, the tree is now one of the most important features of Yule-tide among the Germans of all denominations.
Nearly ten million households require one or two trees each Christmas, varying in height from two to twenty feet. Societies provide them for people who are too poor to buy them, and very few are over-looked at this happy holiday season.
The grand Yule-tide festival is opened on the eve of St. Nicholas Day, December sixth; in fact bazaars are held from the first of the month, which is really one prolonged season of merrymaking.
In Germany, St. Nicholas has a day set apart in his honor. He was born in Palara, a city of Lycia, and but very little is known of his life except that he was made Bishop of Myra and died in the year 343. It was once the custom to send a man around to personate St. Nicholas on St. Nicholas Eve, and to inquire how the children had behaved through the year, who were deserving of gifts, and who needed a touch of the birch rods that he carried with him into every home. St. Nicholas still goes about in some parts of the country, and in the bazaars and shops are sold little bunches of rods, real or made of candy, such as St. Nicholas is supposed to deal in. In some places Knight Rupert takes the place of St. Nicholas in visiting the houses. But Kriss Kringle has nearly usurped the place St. Nicholas once held in awe and respect by German children.
Because St. Nicholas Day came so near to Christmas, in some countries the Saint became associated with that celebration, although in Germany the eve of his birthday continues to be observed. Germans purchase liberally of the toys and confectionery offered at the bazaars, and nowhere are prettier toys and confectionery found than in Germany the country which furnishes the most beautiful toys in the world.
From the palace to the hut, Yule-tide is a season of peace, rest, joy, and devotion. For three days, that is the day before Christmas, Christmas, and the day after known as Boxing-day all business not absolutely necessary to the welfare of the community is suspended. Stores, markets, and bazaars present a festive appearance ; the young girl attendants are smiling and happy, and every one seems in the best of humor.
Many of the poorer class of Germans do not eat much meat, but at Christmas all indulge in that extravagance, so the markets are unusually crowded. They all like to purchase a plant or a flower for Christmas and the flower stores are marvels of beauty and sweetness.
Every one is busy preparing for the great occasion. Grown folks become children again in the simplicity of their enjoyment and enter into the excitement with as much enthusiasm as do the children.
Newspapers are not generally published during the three days of business suspension, for no one would have time or interest to read them at such a season.
In many places churches are open during the week before Christmas, for with all the bustle and excitement incident to the preparations, the people, young and old, are filled with a deep spirit of devotion, and never for an instant forget the significance of the occasion they commemorate.
Churches are not trimmed nor are they made attractive with flowers, songs, or in any special way, but the people go to listen with devotion to the telling of the old, old story of Christ's birthday and of the first Holy Night at Bethlehem.
The day before Christmas all are busy trimming up their homes and preparing for the great day. Usually the mother of the household trims the tree, not admitting any other member of the curious and expectant family into the room. Tables are provided for holding the gifts, as every one in the family is expected to make a gift to every other member, and it is surprising to note the interest taken in these simple gifts often a soap-rose, an artificial flower, knitted lace, even sausages, cheese, or butter and with each and all the ever-present Christmas cake. It is spiced and hard, cut into every manner of device men, women, animals, stars, hearts, etc. The Pfeffer Kuchen (pepper cakes) or some similar cakes are to be seen everywhere at Christmas time.
The gifts are often accompanied with short verses, good, bad, or indifferent, according to the talent of the giver, but all serve to make the occasion merry. In some families these simple inexpensive gifts are so carefully kept that collections may be seen of gifts received by different members of the family since their infancy.
On Christmas Eve the guests assemble early, and by six o'clock a signal is given for the door of the mysterious room to be opened to admit the family to the tree:
"O Hemlock tree ! O Hemlock-tree ! how faith-
ful are thy branches !
Green not alone in summer time,
But in the winter's frost and rime!
O Hemlock-tree ! O Hemlock-tree! how faith-
ful are thy branches !"
It is ablaze with tiny lighted tapers and radiant with shiny tinsel cut in pretty devices or in thread-like strips. Bright balls, gay toys, and paper flowers help to enhance its beauty, and sometimes scenes from sacred history are arranged with toys at the base of the tree.
With the distribution of the gifts the fun begins; each person is expected to kiss every other person present arid help make the occasion a merry one.
Holy Night, or, as the Germans term it, Weihnachtthe Night of Dedication- is the time of family reunions, fun, and frolic. Not alone in homes, hospitals, prisons, barracks, and elsewhere is the pretty betinseled tree to be seen on Christmas, but in burying-grounds, on the resting-places of the dead, stand these fresh green trees in evidence of keeping the loved one's memory green.
While the custom of having a tree is universal throughout Germany, and from thence has been introduced into other countries, there are many customs peculiar to certain sections. In some of the little out-of-the-way places in the Tyrolese Alps the old-time Miracle Plays are enacted in a most primitive manner. As the peasants rarely, if ever, attend the theatre or have any opportunity to see a modern play, this occasion attracts them from far and near. Where is the theatre, who are the actors, do you ask? The theatre is the largest place available, sometimes a large room, sometimes a barn, anything that will accommodate the crowd that is sure to come. In one description of a play given on Christmas Day it is stated that the people assembled in a barn belonging to the vicarage to witness the Paradise Play. The top of a huge pottery stove at least five feet high served for the throne of God the Father, the stove being hidden by screens painted to represent clouds. The play " began at the beginning," at Chaos. A large paper screen bedecked with a profusion of suns, moons, stars, and comets formed a background, while in front sprawled a number of boys in tights with board wings fastened to their shoulders to represent angels. The language was as simple and primitive as the scenery, yet for the credulous, devout peasants " no distance is too great, no passes too steep or rough, no march on dusty highroads too fatiguing, if a Miracle or Passion Play is their goal."
Does it seem sacrilegious? Not to those who attend it in the spirit of humility and devotion, as do these Tyrolese peasants. In some places plays are given in churches on Christmas as they were formerly in England, but these are not common, and are only found in remote places. Throughout this country there is always a church service in the morning which is very generally attended, Protestants and Catholics alike making Christmas the day of all the year in which they attend church.
The name Christmas probably originated from the order that was given for saying mass (called Christ-mass) for the sins of the people on the day that commemorates the Saviour's Birth.
One beautiful feature of a German Christmas is the wide-spread thought for the poor and the interest taken in them. Many wealthy families have charge of a certain number of poor families, and on Christmas Day invite them to their own luxurious homes to receive gifts and enjoy the tree prepared for them. An address, prayer, and song as they stand around the tree precedes the distribution of gifts, usually of clothing and food, with which the guests fill the bags and baskets they bring with them. And for all there is an abundance of Pfeffer Kuchen, or some other Christmas cake.
In the midst of all the excitement of lighted tree and pretty gifts, German children seldom forget to return thanks for what they receive. They are taught that all these gifts come through the Christ-child, and that the occasion is not for selfish enjoyment but to give pleasure to others, and that no one is too poor to give kindly thought and pleasant words to those around them.
In some parts of Germany Lorraine is one the people burn the Yule-log; sometimes a huge log that will last through the three days' festivity, sometimes one so small that the family sit before it until it is all consumed. Sometimes a part of the log is suspended from the ceiling of the room and each person present blows at it hoping to make a spark fall on some watching face; then again some carry a piece of the log to bed with them to protect them from lightning. But the Yule-log is not very generally known in this land of great pottery stoves and closed fireplaces, and that may be one reason why post wagons go rumbling about at Christmas time, carrying parcels from place to place and from door to door, blowing their post-horns continuously, instead of the parcels being dropped down chimneys by Santa Glaus.
It is customary, also, in some parts of the country, for the people and their animals to fast the day before Christmas. At midnight the people attend church and it is said that the cattle kneel; then both man and beast partake of a hearty meal. There are places in the German Alps where it is believed that the cattle are blessed with the gift of language for a while on Christmas Eve, but as it is a very great sin to listen, no one has yet reported any conversation among them. In another part of the country it is thought that the Virgin Mary with a company of angels passes over the land on Holy Night, and so tables are spread with the best the larders afford and candles are lighted and left burning that the angelic visitors may find abundant food should they chance to stop on their way.
Boxing-day, when boxes prepared for the poor are distributed, follows the Holy Day and after that business is resumed, although festivities do not cease.
Sylvester, or New Year's Eve, is the next occasion to be observed during Yule-tide. The former name was given in honor of the first pope of that name, and still retained by many. After the usual church service in the early evening, the intervening hours before midnight are spent in the most boisterous merriment. Fun of all sorts within the limit of law and decency prevails. Any one venturing forth wearing a silk hat is in danger of having his hat, if not his head, smashed. " Hat off," cries the one who spies one of these head-coverings, and if the order is not instantly obeyed, woe betide the luckless wearer. At midnight all Germany, or at least all in the cities and the larger towns, may be seen out-of-doors or leaning from windows, waiting for the bells to ring out the Old Year and welcome in the New. At first stroke of the bells there arises one universal salute of Prosit Neujahr (Happy New Year).
It is all good-natured fun, a wild, exuberant farewell to the Old Year the closing scene of the joyous Yule-tide. by Mary P. Pringle and Clara A. Urann
See a contemporary Christmas in Germany with Olga and Ehsan. "Olga from Belarus and Ehsan from Iran have a closer look at typical
German Christmas customs. (by Maël Frize). More Information about
studying and living in Germany on our Website www.study-in,de."
