Christmas story

“ Welcome, merry Christmas and New-Year! prized by children above all other days in the year. Ye are associated with pleasant recollections of old Santa Claus and sugar-plums—with bright visions of a cheerful fireside, merry games, pleasant stories, and happy, smiling faces. First comes Christmas Eve, when each young face beams with eager curiosity and delightful anticipation—all wondering and guessing what they shall find in their stockings next morning ”

“ Christmas was not only a worldly holiday, a heart festival, a children’s festival, but was besides—yes, first and foremost, a religious festival, where every joy, [106] every bliss has deeper base and root. And as he passed on to the text for the day, he dwelt strongly upon the gentle impressions from the Christmas of their childhood; and before the eyes of the parish he summoned the charming pictures of the babe in the manger, of shepherds and angels and offering kings, while the words fell from the pulpit mildly and tenderly, as if in childlike ecstasy. ”

“ Merry Christmas! Out upon merry Christmas! What’s Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year older, but not an hour richer; a time for balancing your books and having every item in ’em through a round dozen of months presented dead against you? If I could work my will,” said Scrooge indignantly, “every idiot who goes about with ‘Merry Christmas’ on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. He should!”
“Uncle!” pleaded the nephew. ”

“ Each man pictured the Christmas he would like to spend to-morrow if he got the chance. It is funny how we cling, in spite of long years of disillusionment, to the mind-pictures of our childhood, and conjure up visions of a snow-covered countryside, with robins, holly trees, waits, and all the things that go into the Christmas card. ”

“ And the dear old lady began to think a good deal about it.
"We keep it right here in church too. We have a Christmas-tree, and sing carols, and all the children get presents and candy, and ever so many nice things; and everybody is just as happy as can be. Don't you think that is a nice way to remember the coming of Jesus and God's gift to all of us?"
"Well! well! well! and so to-night is the very night, is it? Judge, did you know that our folks [131] now keep Christmas in their churches and their homes? ”

“ Fathers do like to give their little girls Christmas presents, Jane says; maybe that's why they're obliged to come back always on Christmas Eve, if they've been lost. Do you know, even if there aren't any fairies, it's just like a fairy story having my father come back, and take me to Angel in a motor car on Christmas eve. ”

“ We have never had any quarrel, to which I have been a party. But I have made the trial in homage to Christmas, and I’ll keep my Christmas humour to the last. So A Merry Christmas, uncle!”
“Good afternoon!” said Scrooge. ”

“ It gives one large liberty if one will be honest to self.
The footsteps of the babies, sent to some nether world, died away.
“Yet Christmas is meant for babies, or, rather, Christmas means A Baby.”
The girl rose. There were rooms opening around the hallway. It was at times such as this, with married sisters and brothers arriving with their families and laughter and jollity, that one loved it so, the space, and the beauty, and the means. At times such as Christmas one paused and thought about it all. The dear Daddy who had given it to them! ”

“ Every child is entitled to a thorough explanation and a lasting impression [51] of the incident which Christmas commemorates. In shaping the Christmas idea in the boy’s mind we should begin at the beginning. If the story of the Star of Bethlehem is told in the right way and at the right time, it may be depended upon to survive the myths and the merry-making with which the atmosphere is charged during the festal period.
And this need not militate against the development of the Santa Claus side of the celebration, for the one amplifies the other. ”

“ There are just as many real Christmas stories as ever, if we would only dig ’em up. Me, I am for the Scrooge and Marley Christmas story, and the Annie and Willie’s prayer poem, and the long lost son coming home on the stroke of twelve to the poorly thatched cottage with his arms full of talking dolls and popcorn balls and—Zip! ”

“ I have also written the old-fashioned Christmas story—you know that also: you begin with a good old-fashioned snowstorm; you have a good old-fashioned squire, and he lives in a good old-fashioned Hall; you work in a good old-fashioned murder; and end up with a good old-fashioned Christmas dinner. I have gathered Christmas guests together round the crackling logs to tell ghost stories to each other on Christmas Eve, while without the wind howled, as it always does on these occasions, at its proper cue. ”

“ This lady of the Christmas Spirit had the whole city on tip-toes. Everyone was looking for her; everyone hoping to come downtown some fine morning to meet her and to claim her bag of gold. Shoppers gazed into faces of fellow shoppers to wonder: “Are you the Spirit of Christmas? ”

“ Then suddenly some one came around the corner—some one tall and thin, with a cap on his head and an empty basket in his hands.
“Hello,” he said. “A Merry Christmas.”
It was the Small Girl’s father, and he put the key in the lock, and went in, and turned on a light, and there was the table set for four.
And the Small Girl’s father said: “You see we have set a place for you. We must eat something before we go out.” ”

“ Luke's story of the shepherds keeping watch over their flocks by night. One thinks of the stillness over the fields, of the hinds with their rough talk, “simply chatting in a rustic row,” of the keen air, and the great burst of light and song that dazes their simple wits, of their journey to Bethlehem where “the heaven-born Child all meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies,” of the ox and ass linking the beasts of the field to the Christmas adoration of mankind. [80]
For many people, indeed, the charm of Christmas is inseparably associated with the country ”

“ The story had held us, round the fire, sufficiently breathless, but except the obvious remark that it was gruesome, as, on Christmas Eve in an old house, a strange tale should essentially be, I remember no comment uttered till somebody happened to say that it was the only case he had met in which such a visitation had fallen on a child. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It always is Christmas Eve, in a ghost story,
Christmas Eve is the ghosts' great gala night. ”

“ Watching the ruddy embers gleam athwart the panelled hall;
Nor care I if I dream or not, though severed by the foam,
My heart is always in the spot which was my childhood's home.
CHRISTMAS
ROSE TERRY COOKE
Here comes old Father Christmas,
With sound of fife and drums;
With mistletoe about his brows,
So merrily he comes!
His arms are full of all good cheer,
His face with laughter glows,
He shines like any household fire
Amid the cruel snows.
He is the old folks' Christmas;
He warms their hearts like wine;
He thaws their winter into spring,
And makes their faces shine. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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. ”

“ And the drowsy folk of Bethlehem may have listened as they lay!
But eager shepherds left their flocks, and o'er the desert wild
The kingly sages journeyed to adore the Holy Child!
Has any man a quarrel?
Has another used you ill?
The friendly word you meant to say,
Is that unspoken still?—
Then, remember, 'twas the Angels
Brought glad tidings of good will!
Of all the gifts of Christmas, are you fain to win the best?
Lo! the Christ-child still is waiting Himself to be your guest;
No lot so high or lowly but He will take His part,
If you do but bid Him welcome to a clean and tender heart. ”

“ Who ever heard of a middle-aged fairy? Such folk, be their age what it may, generally prefer fun; especially do they love what Charles Dickens once for all defined and established as the Spirit of Christmas. Well, here they may find Father Christmas at home, and on his rounds. Here they will find revealed and laid bare the whole secret and mystery of Santa Claus—where the presents come from, and where they are stored—how they are packed and how delivered while we are all asleep in our beds, delivered from the waits. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ Young and old float to the happy strains, forgetting injustice, oppression, hatred. Children slide upon the waxed floor, weaving fearlessly in and out between the couples—between fierce, bearded men and short-haired women with crimson-bordered kerchiefs. A Punch-and-Judy show in the corner evokes shouts of laughter.
Outside the snow is falling. It sifts silently into each nook and corner, softens all the hard and ugly lines, and throws the spotless mantle of charity over the blemishes, the shortcomings. Christmas morning will dawn pure and white. ”

“ Large Christmas doles he seeks;
A pannier wide receives the store,
Yet never a word he speaks!
The nougat bells so merrily ring
Yet never a note he hears;
He gathers the gifts the good folk bring,
And onward still he steers. ”

“ What, then, between the sleigh-rides, the bell-melodies, old Santa Claus and his fictions, the egg-nogg and lunches, the weddings and the willingness to be entertained, the Americans find no difficulty in enjoying Christmas Day. ”

“ 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 ”

“ It would be one full, as that of the child Christ must be, of the pieces of silver that were lost and are found. But Christmas, with its peculiar associations, has deep interest for men, and women too, no less. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Still there were toys left, toys in abundance; the wondrous benefactors passed slowly on, always going up, up into the huddled village streets—tunnelled in rock or arched with stone, where eager, astonished faces peered from the mystery of shadowed doorways, and the hum of joy and admiration swelled to a sound like the murmur of the sea. ”

“ 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. ”