The Christmas Road of Salem

       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 its echoes, 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 of the 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 elaborate process 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

• Visit Old Salem for the Christmas Holidays

Bethabara Moravian Church Christmas Lovefeast in Winston Salem. 

Read About Christmas in Spain in 1916

" 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 vain for 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 in honor 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 King holds 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

 Watch the Three Kings Parade in Madrid Spain.

The Puritan Doll

The Puritan Doll

  by Mary E. Wilkins

Our Puritan fathers, stern and good,

Had never a holiday;

Sober and earnest seemed life to them--

They only stopped working to pray.

And the little Puritan maidens learned

Their catechisms through;

And spun their stints, and wove themselves

Their garments of homely blue.

And they never made merry on Christmas day--

It would savor of Pope and Rome;

And never there was a Christmas-tree

Set up in a Puritan home.

And Christmas eve, in the chimney-place,

There was never a stocking hung;

There never was woven a Christmas wreath,

There was never a carol sung.

Sweet little Ruth, with her flaxen hair

All neatly braided and tied,

Was sitting one old December day

At her pretty young mother's side.

She listened, speaking never a word,

With her serious, thoughtful look,

To the Christmas story her mother read

Out of the good old Book.

"I'll tell thee, Ruth!" her mother cried,

Herself scarce more than a girl,

As she smoothed her little daughter's hair,

Lest it straggle out into a curl,

"If thy stint be spun each day this week,

And thou toil like a busy bee,

A Christmas present on Christmas day

I promise to give to thee."

And then she talked of those merry times

She never could quite forget;

The Christmas cheer, the holly and yule--

She was hardly a Puritan yet.

She talked of those dear old English days,

With tears in her loving eyes,

And little Ruth heard like a Puritan child,

With a quiet though glad surprise.

But nevertheless she thought of her gift,

As much as would any of you,

And busily round, each day of the week,

Her little spinning-wheel flew.

Tired little Ruth! but oh, she thought

She was paid for it after all,

When her mother gave her on Christmas day

A little Puritan doll.

'Twas made of a piece of a homespun sheet,

Dressed in a homespun gown

Cut just like Ruth's, and a little cap

With a stiff white muslin crown.

A primly folded muslin cape--

I don't think one of you all

Would have been so bold as to dare to play

With that dignified Puritan doll.

Dear little Ruth showed her delight

In her queer little quiet way;

She did not say much, but she held her doll

In her arms all Christmas day.

And when at twilight her mother read

That Christmas story o'er,

Happy Ruth took the sweetness of it in

As she never had done before.

And then (she always said "good-night"

When the shadows began to fall)

She was so happy she went to sleep

Still holding her Christmas doll.

Craft a Nativity Diorama Using Paper Dolls

Arrangement for the paper doll figures. CC

The Nativity by Charles Kingsley

O blessed day which giv'st the eternal lie

To self, and sense, and all the brute within;

Oh! come to us amid the war of life;

To hall and hovel come! to all who toil

In senate, shop and study! and to those

Ill-warned and sorely tempted-

Come to them, blest and blessing, Christmas Day!

Tell them once more the tale of Bethlehem,

The kneeling shepherds and the Babe Divine;

And keep them men indeed, fair Christmas Day!

        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."

Next Figure(s)

A Visit To Santa Claus Land

A Visit To Santa Claus Land

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

Merry Christmas!

The Gift That None Could See.

 
"There are silver pines on the window-pane,

A forest of them," said he;

"And a huntsman is there with a silver horn,

Which he bloweth right merrily.

"And there are a flock of silver ducks

A-flying over his head;

And a silver sea and a silver hill

In the distance away," he said.

"And all of this is on the window-pane,

My pretty mamma, true as true!"

She lovingly smiled, but she looked not up,

And faster her needle flew.

A dear little fellow the speaker was--

Silver and jewels and gold,

Lilies and roses and honey-flowers,

In a sweet little bundle rulled.

He stood by the frosty window-pane

Till he tired of the silver trees,

The huntsman blowing his silver horn,

The hills and the silver seas;

And he breathed on the flock of silver ducks,

Till he melted them quite away;

And he saw the street, and the people pass --

And the morrow was Christmas day.

"The children are out, and they laugh and shout,

I know what it's for," said he;

"And they're dragging along my pretty mamma,

A fir for a Christmas-tree."

He came and stood by his mother's side:

"To-night it is Christmas eve,

And is there a gift somewhere for me,

Gold mamma, do you believe?"

Still the needle sped in her slender hands

"My little sweetheart," said she,

"The Christ Child has planned this Christmas for you

His gift that you cannot see."

The boy looked up with a sweet, wise look

On his beautiful baby-face:

"Then my stocking I'll hang for the Christ Child's gift,

To-night, in the chimney-place."

On Christmas morning the city through,

The children were queens and kings,

With their royal treasuries bursting o'er

With wonderful, lovely things.

But the merriest child in the city full,

And the fullest of all with glee,

Was the one whom the dear Christ Child had brought

The gift that he could not see.

"Quite empty it looks, oh my gold mamma,

The stoking I hung last night!

"So then it is full of the Christ's Child's gift."

And she smiled till his face grew bright.

"Now sweetheart," she said, with a patient look

On her delicate, weary face,

"I must go and carry my sewing home,

And leave thee a little space.

"Now stay with thy sweet thoughts, heart's delight,

And I soon will be back to thee."

"I'll pay, while you're gone, my pretty mamma,

With my gift that I cannot see."

He watched his mother pass down the street;

Then he looked at the window-pane

Where a garden of new frost-flowers had bloomed

While he on his bed had lain.

Then he tenderly took up his empty sock,

And quietly sat a while,

Holding it fast, and eyeing it

With his innocent, trusting smile.

"I am tired of waiting," he said at last;

"I think I will go and meet

My pretty mamma, and come with her

A little way down the street.

"And I'll carry with me, to keep it safe,

My gift that I cannot see."

And down the street, 'mid the chattering crowd,

He trotted right merrily.

"And where are you going, you dear little man?"

They called to him as he passed;

"That empty stocking why do you hold

In your little hand so fast?"

Then he looked at them with his honest eyes,

And answered sturdily:

"My stoking is full to the top, kind sirs,

Of the gift that I cannot see."

They would stare and laugh, but he trudged along,

With his stocking fast in his hand:

"And I wonder why 'tis that the people all

Seem not to understand!"

"Oh my heart's little flower!" she cried to him,

A-hurring down the street;

"And why are you out on the street alone?

And where are you going, my sweet?"

"I was coming to meet you, my pretty mamma,

With my gift that I cannot see;

But tell me why that the people laugh

And stare at my gift and me?"

Like the Maid at her Son, in the Altar-piece,

So loving she looked and mild:

"Because, dear heart, of all that you met,

Not one was a little child."

O thou who art grieving at Christmas-tide,

The lesson is meant for thee:

That thou mayst get Christ's loveliest gifts

In ways thou canst not see;

And how, although no earthly good

Seems into thy lot to fall,

Hast thou a trusting child-like heart,

Thou hast the best of all.

by Mary E. Wilkins

A Cool Balancing Act Ornament Craft

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:

1. crush three balls from the newsprint and cover these with masking tape. 
2. Tape the snowball body parts together.
3. Poke holes where ever you would like his arms to be with the tip of your scissors.
4. Squeeze a generous portion of white glue into these holes and press the Q-tip arms inside the cavities. Let the body dry.
5. Unravel a generous portion of white cotton balls.
6. Apply white glue to the masked surfaces of your snow persons body and wrap the cotton around the form excluding the O-tip arms. 
7. Apply maybe three to four layers of cotton batting always layering it with white glue. 
8. Cut a little paper cap from the egg carton and glue this to the top of his head.
9. 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.
10. Glue on the miniature features and let the snowman dry thoroughly before painting him.
11. Paint his features using fast drying paints.
12. 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.

Christmas In The Woods

 Christmas In The Woods
by Henry Clayton Hopkins

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.

Christmas Hymn.

Christmas Hymn

Sing, Christmas bells!

Say to the earth this is the morn

Whereon our Savior-King is born ;

Sing to all men,--the bond, the free,

The rich, the poor, the high, the low,

The little child that sports in glee,

The aged folk that tottering go,--

Proclaim the morn

That Christ is born,

That saveth them and saveth me!

Sing angel host!

Sing of the star that God has placed

Above the manger in the East ;

Sing of the glories of the night,

The virgin's sweet humility,

The Babe with kingly robes bedlight,--

Sing to all men where'er they be

This Christmas morn;

For Christ is born,

That saveth them and saveth me!

Sing, sons of earth!

O ransomed seed of Adam, sing!

God liveth, and we have a king!

The curse is gone, the bond are free --

By Bethlehem's star that brightly beamed,

By all the heavenly signs that be,

We know that Israel is redeemed ;

That on this morn

The Christ is born

That saveth you and saveth me!

Sing, O my heart!

Sing thou in rapture this dear morn

Whereon the blessed Prince is born!

And as thy songs shall be of love,

So let my deeds be charity, --

By the dear Lord that reigns above,

By Him that died upon the tree,

By this fair morn

Whereon is born

The Christ that saveth all and me!

by Eugene Field

Christmas Eve in Our Village

 Christmas Eve in Our Village

Main Street is adorned. 

Each lamppost glimmers,

Crowned with a blue, electric star.

The gift tree by our fountain shimmers, 

Superbly tall, if angular 

With garlands proper to the times

Our doors are wreathed, our lintels strewn.

From our two steeples sound the chimes,

Incessant, through the afternoon,

Only a little out of tune.

Breathless, with boxes hard to handle,

The grocery drivers come and go. 

Madam the Chairman lights a candle 

To introduce our club's tableau. 

The hopeful children pray for snow.

They cluster, mittened, in the park

To talk of morning, half affrighted,

And early comes the winter dark

And early are our windows lighted 

To beckon homeward the benighted.

The eggnog's lifted for libation,

Silent at last the postman's ring,

But on the plaza near the station 

The carolers are caroling.

"O Little Town!" the carolers sing.

by Phyllis McGinley.