Christmas rose

“ Long shafts of light from the bare, uncurtained windows of the old church lay across the snow, as the cracked bell jangled through the crisp air its Christmas greeting. The jingle of sleigh-bells, the creaking of the runners, merry voices, bits of song, gay laughter, united in a Christmas carol redolent with Christmas spirit—Peace on earth, good will to men. ”

“ Ay, and at the window sat the little sick boy, and the toy Santa Claus left him seemed to have brought him strength and health, for his eyes sparkled and his cheeks glowed, and it was plain to see his heart was full of happiness.
And, oh! how the chimes did ring out, and how joyfully they sang their Christmas carol that morning! They sang of Bethlehem and the manger and the Babe; they sang of love and charity, till all the Christmas air seemed full of angel voices. ”

“ I am not, as you thought I was, a hundred years old, but I can conjure up, as anybody can, a picture of Christmas in the good old days of a hundred years ago: the quaint old-fashioned houses, standing deep among the evergreens, with the light twinkling from the windows on the snow; the warmth and comfort within; the great fire roaring on the hearth; the merry guests grouped about its blaze and the little children with their eyes dancing in the Christmas fire- light, waiting for Father Christmas in his fine mummery of red and white and cotton wool to hand the presents from the yule-tide tree. ”

“ Each homestead, and old Christmas brow
Is crowned with evergreen tonight.
A snowy mantle's on the grass—
Old frozen Winter placed it there.
And trooping to the midnight mass,
Our hearts are filled with holy prayer
⁠To welcome blessed Christmas.
The church is all ablaze with light,
And pious hands have placed there
Festoons of brilliant green and white:
The crib arranged with holy Care,
From God's high altar there ascends
A light, like glory's brightest beam;
The organ's peal, that melting blends
Our souls into blissful dream,
⁠To welcome holy Christmas. ”

“ Come! deck the home with holly wreaths and make this Christmas glow,
And let Old Glory wave above the bough of mistletoe!
Come! keep alive the faith of them who sleep 'neath Flanders snow.
Ye brave of heart who dwell at home, make merry now a-while;
The world has need of Christmas cheer its sorrows to beguile;
And blest is he whose love can light grief's corners with a smile.
Ring out once more, sweet Christmas bells, your message to the sky,
Proclaim in golden tones again to every passer-by
That peace shall rule the lands of earth, and only war shall die. ”

“ One drop trembled upon the wan cheek of the doll. The last sunbeam shot athwart it and made it glisten like a priceless jewel. Its glory grew and filled the room. Gone were the black walls, the darkness and the cold. There was warmth and light and joy. Merry voices and glad faces were all about. A flock of children danced with gleeful shouts about a great Christmas-tree in the middle of the floor. ”

“ You expect to see the merino morning-wrapper reconnoitering the movements of your own sweet pledges of affection; but she doesn't: you can only hear the ticking of the little French clock on the mantle-piece, and the spluttering of the coal as it bursts into a gassy flame between the bars of the grate, and you almost imagine Christmas has passed. You are deceived; for by-and-by you hear your children's footsteps as they skip over the garden-walk, and the sound of their ringing laughter as they rush in out of the cold, and their clamor rises louder and gladder and more jubilant than ever. ”

“ What does anything matter but happiness? Christmas is coming! Every man, woman, and child is a hurrying Santa Claus. The first snow brings its strange hush, its strange sheltering pureness, and the sleigh-bells begin once more to jingle all about. During Christmas week hundreds of strings of colored lights are hung across the business streets. Wreaths and garlands of fragrant balsam fir, the very breath and expression of our countryside, are hung everywhere, over shop windows and doorways, in every house window, and on quiet mounds in the churchyard and cemetery. ”

“ See with what hearty, noisy glee
⁠Our little ones to-night
Dance round and round our Christmas tree
⁠With pretty toys bedight.
Dearest, one voice they may not hear,
⁠One face they may not see—
Ah, what of all this Christmas cheer
⁠Cometh to you and me? ”

“ Vast is the crop of such fruit, shining on our Christmas Tree; in blossom, almost at the very top; ripening all down the boughs!
Among the later toys and fancies hanging there—as idle often and less pure—be the images once associated with the sweet old Waits, the softened music in the night, ever unalterable! Encircled by the social thoughts of Christmas-time, still let the benignant figure of my childhood stand unchanged! In every cheerful image and suggestion that the season brings, may the bright star that rested above the poor roof, be the star of all the Christian World! ”

“ Things have indeed come to a tragic pass when a thought of the one most splendid and gorgeous day of the entire year quenches the sparkle in a [Pg 8] child’s eyes and crushes every feeling of ecstatic anticipation out of a child’s heart. It was indeed a spectacle to cause one to stop and ponder, this widespread shrinking and shuddering at the very thought of Christmas, this long-drawn sigh of relief when Christmas was really over. ”

“ During my long life I have seen many a day-dream and many an air-castle go the way of Santa Claus and the wonderful "Lamp of Aladdin."
In after years, when I became a parent, my beloved wife and I, determined to make the Christmastide one of the golden days of the twelve months. In mid-winter, when all outside vegetation was bleak and bare, the Christmas-tree in our parlor bloomed in many-colored beauty and bounty. When the tiny candles were all lighted the children and our domestics gathered round it and one of the youngsters rehearsed some pretty juvenile effusion ”

“ No other holiday has so rich an heritage of old customs and observances as Christmas. The Yule Log has from time immemorial been haled to the open fire-place on Christmas Eve, and lighted with the embers of its predecessor to sanctify the roof-tree and protect it against those evil spirits over whom the season is in everyway a triumph. Then the wassail bowl full of swimming roasted apples, goes its merry round. Then the gift-shadowing Christmas tree sheds its divine brilliance down the path of the coming year; or stockings are hung for Santa Claus (St. Nicholas) to fill during the night. ”

“ He will never be satisfied unless we hang it on too."
"Oh, yes," said some one else who was helping to decorate the tree; "we will hang it here on the very top."
So the little star hung on the highest branch of the Christmas-tree.
That evening all the candles were lighted on the Christmas-tree, and there were so many that they fairly dazzled the eyes; and the gold and silver balls, the fairies and the glass fruits, shone and twinkled in the light; and high above them all shone the golden star. ”

“ Christmas comes to greet you with a new face—not the old familiar on of bygone and happier years, but Christmas still, bringing bringing with it sacred memories of home and friends: your only consolation to know that they miss you at home; your only hope that your next and each successive one will be still brighter. You need a Christmas story—each of you has one in his own heart; and He who gave you Christmas time will cause the holy influence of the day to fall as sweetly on you here, on the desolate ocean, as under happier skies and auspices. ”

“ In this terrible winter night of existence, amidst an appalling darkness of Nature and Mind, the one great occasion of the year is Christmas. Not the merry, bright, festive occasion of their more favored brothers and sisters, but what to them is the happiest in the year. ”

“ Dear Lord, at this glad Christmas tide,
When loving friends with joyous mirth
Meet ’round each cheerful Christmas hearth,
Is there no Christmas guest for me?
See Lord, my heart’s door opened wide,
O, enter Thou, with me abide ”

“ There were watchful eyes, there were anxious hearts in the city of Nome;
And they cheered with a will when the Man from the West with his prize came home!
And they cheered again for the Christmas Tree that was brought from far,
Chained to his sledge, like a king of old to the conqueror’s car!
Said the Man from the South, “I’ll ’tend to the fruit that grows on the Tree!”
Said the Man from the East, “Leave the Christmas dinner and trimmings to me!” ”

“ They were all good-natured, every one, though the train was behind time—that is a sure sign of Christmas. The brakeman wore a piece of mistletoe in his cap and a broad grin on his face, and he said "Merry Christmas" in a way to make a man feel good all the rest of the day. No Santa Claus, is there? ”

“ It's a merry Christmas, this Twenty-fifth of December, eighteen hundred and eighty-seven,—a very merry Christmas; times have scarcely changed at all in the last thirty years. The sun shines down brightly, and the frosty air is fall of gladness; for Santa Claus, with his untold wonders, has come and gone. Ecstasies over dolls and transports over tea-sets, screams of delight at hobby-horses and enthusiastic exclamations at humming-tops, have passed. ”

“ Trinity offers for contemplation an ineffable paradox of Pure Being. But the God of Christmas is no ethereal form, no mere spiritual essence, but a very human child, feeling the cold and the roughness of the straw, needing to be warmed and fed and cherished. Christmas is the festival of the natural body, of this world; it means the consecration of the ordinary things of life, affection and comradeship, eating and drinking and merrymaking; and in some degree the memory of the Incarnation has been able to blend with the pagan joyance of the New Year. ”

“ Who Sanny Claw?—what’s Clismas?” eagerly inquired the child.
“Don’t you know what Christmas is?” said Dorothy. “Why, Christmas is the loveliest time of all the year. It is then that we hang up our stockings, and in the night while we are asleep Santa Claus comes down the chimney, and fills our stockings with the loveliest things—dolls and toys and candy, and, oh—just everything.” ”

“ Heart must touch heart. Benevolence also cannot be confined to calendars. Those good people will exhibit the most of the spirit of our Blessed Master who practice Christmas-giving and cheerful, unselfish and zealous Christmas-living through all the circling year.
CHRISTMAS BELLS
ANON
There are sounds in the sky when the year grows old,
And the winds of the winter blow—
When night and the moon are clear and cold,
And the stars shine on the snow,
Or wild is the blast and the bitter sleet
That beats on the window-pane;
But blest on the frosty hills are the feet
Of the Christmas time again! ”

“ Soft pillowed in a manger bed!
O Mystery divine and deep
Help us Thy prophecies to keep!
THE CHRISTMAS FIRES
ANNE P.L. FIELD
The Christmas fires brightly gleam
And dance among the holly boughs,
The Christmas pudding's spicy steam
With fragrance fills the house,
While merry grows each friendly soul
Over the foaming wassail bowl.
Resplendent stands the glitt'ring tree,
Weighted with gifts for old and young,
The children's faces shine with glee,
And joyous is each tongue,
While lads and lassies come and go
Under the festive mistletoe. ”

“ But if it will bring the rich to the poor, if it will not forget a single legend or grace, if the holly and evergreen will breathe the sweetest and highest significance, if we can remember that every simple festival at Christmas which makes the hearth-stone brighter is a tribute to the highest wisdom, if we connect Christmas and humanity, then shall we keep it aright. For the world unlocks its heart on every Christmas Day as it has done for eighteen Christian centuries. ”

“ Christmas in lands of the fir-tree and pine, Christmas in lands of the palm-tree and vine, Christmas where snow-peaks stand solemn and white, Christmas where corn-fields lie sunny and bright, Everywhere, everywhere, Christmas to-night! Christmas where children are hopeful and gay, Christmas where old men are patient and gray, Christmas where peace, like a dove in its flight, Broods o'er brave men in the thick of the fight ”

“ A very grave and sweet look came into the girlish face, as she followed his glance and saw the star in the east shining brightly through the swaying pine boughs.
“Christmas, Christmas,” he whispered. “Oh, my darling, what a gift He is giving me on his birthday—how much more precious than the gold and frankincense He received eighteen hundred years ago!”
So they glide along as blessed as if the poor old sleigh, with its odorous load of evergreen and holly, were a heavenly chariot bearing them away from everything low and bad and wretched in the world, [Pg 125] until they draw near the city. ”

“ What must he feel who, with a stroke of his bow, can change the aspect of the world! It is he! It is he at last!"
Christmas morning dawned upon the world. The first rays of light that penetrated into the drawing-room brought with them the muffled sound of carriages hurrying over the snow, and the occasional shout of a belated reveller mingling with the faint murmur from groups of early church-goers. But what was this to the little shepherdess? The day that had dawned for her was more momentous than Christmas. ”

“ Paddy Mike. And all the angels sang above of peace on earth, good will and love.
Biddy Mary.
Sergius. May the spirit of Christmas enter every heart tonight, making all the world one big, happy family, no rich, no poor, no high, no low, all brothers and sisters, all children of the Lord on high!
Meeny. Maybe good old Santa Claus will come after all. Vell, if he does I want to be ready for him. (Produces two very large red stockings, made for the occasion.) Come, Yakob and Hans and Mieze, let us hang up our stockings here under the burning candle. (They hang up the four pair of stockings.) ”