Christmas is a day of days to the little folks, because of the gifts it brings to them. But Christmas gifts have a greater or a lesser value in the eyes of children according to the measure of the giver’s self which is given with them. It is not that children intelligently prize their gifts, as older persons are likely to, in proportion as they read in them the proofs of the giver’s loving labor in their preparation. But it is that to children the Christmas gifts by themselves are of minor value, in comparison with the interest excited in the manner of their giving, through labors that really represent the giver’s self, whether the children perceive this, at the time, or not.
The Christmas stocking and the Christmas tree[Pg 284] give added value to the gifts that they cover; and neither tree nor stocking can be made ready for Christmas morning without patient and loving labor, on the part of the parents, during the night before. Moreover, beyond the dazzling attractions of the ornamented tree, and the suggestive outline of the bulging stocking, the more there is to provoke curiosity and to incite endeavor, on the children’s part, in the finding and securing of their Christmas portion, the better the children like it, and the more they value that which is thus made theirs.
It takes time and work and skill to make the most, for the children, of a Christmas morning; but it pays to do this for the darlings, while they still are children. They will never forget it; and it will be a precious memory to them all their life through. It is one of the child-training agencies which a parent ought to be glad to use for good.
One good man might be named who has brought to perfection the art of making Christmas delight[Pg 285]ful to children. He has no children of his own; so he makes it his mission to give happiness to other people’s children. The story of bright and varied Christmas methods in his home would fill a little volume. His plans for Christmas are never twice alike; hence the children whom he gathers say truly, “There was never anything like this before.” Take a single Christmas for example. This child-lover was busy getting ready for it for weeks in advance. Money he spent freely, but he did not stop with that. Day and evening, with a loving sister’s help, he worked away getting everything just to his mind—which was sure to be just to the children’s mind. At last Christmas eve was here; so were the children—nieces and nephews, and others more remote of kin, gathered in his home to wait for the hoped-for day.
Christmas morning came at last. Waking and sleeping dreams had all been full of coming delights to the children; for they knew enough from the past to be sure that good was in store for them. No one overslept, that morning. Accord[Pg 286]ing to orders, they gathered in the breakfast-room. Their stockings were hanging from the mantel, but limp and empty. Not one suspicious package or box was to be seen. Breakfast was first out of the way, that the morning might be free for a right good time. Then the day was fairly open. Each went to his or her stocking. There was nothing in it but a little card, pendent from a thread coming over the mantel edge. On that card was a rhyming call to follow the thread wherever it might lead; somewhat after this form:
“Charley, dear, if you’ll follow your nose,
And your nose will follow this string
Throughout the house, wherever it goes,—
You will come to a pretty thing.”
Every stocking told the same story, in varied form, and every child stood holding a frail thread, wondering to what it would lead, and waiting the signal for a start. At the word, all were off together.
It was a rare old house, richly furnished with treasures of art and fancy from all the world over.[P............