To show you my red coat and hood
And my red mittens, too,

And tell you that I'm always good;

You'll visit me, won't you?

(Red Riding Hood joins children behind Santa's chair. Enter a brownie with two children.)

Children-We're two of the little children

We live in the wonderful shoe.
That shoe holds twenty little ones,
You'd never believe it was true;
But if you were crowded as we are,
You'd do as we're going to do,

And that is ask our dear Santa

For a larger and wider shoe.

(Enter Mother Goose peering over her glasses-All children say, "Sh!" and hide behind chair, etc.)

Mother Goose-My children! My children! where are they?
Oho! you naughty girls and boys,

How did you ever get here?

(Brownies all run up and gather around her.)

Brownies-We brought them, Mother Goose.

Mother Goose-Yes, I suppose. It's just like you mischievous brownies, Been asking Santa for gifts, I suppose.

Jill-Yes, Mother, and he's going to give them to us, too,

Because he's such a good old man.

Let's sing a song for Santa Claus.

(Brownies form ring and dance around his chair. Others

dance around them. All sing.)

Sing a song of Santa Claus,
Whose pack is full of toys,
Oh, what fun it is to bring
Good things to girls and boys;
When the pack is open wide
Just hear the children sing

The praise of good old Santa Claus,
The jolly Christmas King.

CHRISTMAS QUOTATIONS

The world is happy, the world is wide,
Kind hearts are beating on every side.

-Lowell.

The yearly course that brings this day about,
Shall never see it but a holiday.

-Shakespeare.

Awake, glad heart! get up and sing!
It is the birthday of thy King.

-Vaughn.

Who gives to whom hath naught been given,
His gift in need, though small indeed,
As is the grass-blade's wind-blown seed,
Is large as earth and rich as heaven.

Not what we give but what we share,—
The gift without the giver is bare;
He gives but worthless gold

Who gives from a sense of duty.

-Whittier.

-Lowell.

I am sure I have always thought of Christmas as a good time—a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; and therefore, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!-Charles Dick

Life is a Christmas stocking. It is long and deep. Take your blessings from the top, one at a time, gratefully, but not too fast or eagerly; enjoy them and be generous with them and reach down again! When you have pulled out all the gifts you thought were there, search yet another time. For some of the dearest gifts of the love of God are hidden so deep that we find them only when we have come to believe that life is empty and sad, just when we most need to find the choicest and best of all the secrets of His never-failing goodness toward His children. And when you have reached the very bottom, hang up the stocking of your hope again; for God has other Christmas gifts for you in the world from which Christmas comes.-Rev. William E. Barton, in the Youth's Companion.

SANTA CLAUS

He comes in the night! He comes in the night!

He softly, silently comes;

While the little brown heads on the pillows so white are dreaming of

Bugles and drums.

He cuts through the snow like a ship through the foam,

While the white flakes around him whirl;

Who tells him I know not, but he findeth the home

Of each good little boy and girl.

His sleigh it is long, and deep, and wide;
It will carry a host of things,

While dozens of drums hang over the side,
With the sticks sticking under the strings.
And yet not the sound of a drum is heard,
Not a bugle blast is blown,

As he mounts to the chimney-top like a bird,
And drops to the hearth like a stone.

The little red stockings he silently fills,
Till the stockings will hold no more;

The bright little sleds for the great snow hills
Are quickly set down on the floor.

Then Santa Claus mounts to the roof like a bird,
And glides to his seat in the sleigh;

Not the sound of a bugle or drum is heard
As he noiselessly gallops away.

He rides to the East, he rides to the West,
Of his goodies he touches not one;

He eateth the crumbs of the Christmas feast
When the dear little folks are done.

Old Santa Claus doeth all that he can;

This beautiful mission is his;

Then, children, be good to the little old man,

When you find who the little man is.

-(Taken from "The Posy Ring," Compiled by Kate Douglas Wiggin.)

KEEPING CHRISTMAS

It is a good thing to observe Christmas Day. The mere marking of times and seasons when men agree to stop work and make merry together is a wise and wholesome custom. It helps one to feel the supremacy of the common life over the individual life. It reminds a man to set his little watch now and then, by the great clock of humanity. But there is a better thing than the observance of Christmas Day, and that is keeping Christmas. Are you willing to forget what you have done for other people and to remember what other people have done for you;

to ignore what the world owes you and to think what you owe the world; to put your rights in the background, your duties in the middle distance, and your chances to do a little more than your duty in the foreground; to see that your fellowmen are just as real as you are, and try to look behind their faces to their hearts hungry for joy; to own that probably the only good reason for your existence is not what you are going to get out of life, but what you are going to give to life; to close your book of complaints against the management of the universe and look around for a place where you can sow a few seeds of happiness?

Are you willing to stoop down and consider the needs and desires of little children; to remember the weakness and loneliness of people who are growing old; to stop asking how much your friends love you and ask yourself whether you love them enough; to bear in mind the things that other people have to bear on their hearts; to try to understand what those who live in the same house with you really want without waiting for them to tell you; to trim your lamp so that it will give more light and less smoke, and to carry it in front so that your shadow will fall behind you; to make a grave for your ugly thoughts and a garden for your kindly feelings, with the gate open? Are you willing to do these things even for a day? Then you can keep Christmas.

Are you willing to believe that love is the strongest thing in the world -stronger than hate, stronger than evil, stronger than death-and that the blessed life which began in Bethlehem nineteen hundred years ago is the image and brightness of the Eternal Love? Then you can keep Christmas. And if you can keep it for a day, why not for always? But you can not keep it alone.-Henry van Dyke.

CHRISTMAS CAROL

The earth has grown old with its burden of care,
But at Christmas it always is young;

The heart of the jewel burns lustrous and fair,
And its soul full of music breaks forth on the air,
When the song of the angels is sung.

It is coming, Old Earth, it is coming to-night:
On the snowflakes which cover thy sod

The feet of the Christ Child fall gentle and white,
And the voice of the Christ Child tells out with delight
That mankind are the children of God.

On the sad and the lonely, the wretched and poor,
That voice of the Christ Child shall fall,
And to every blind wanderer opens the door
Of a hope that he dared not to dream of before,
With a sunshine of welcome for all.

The feet of the humblest may walk in the field
Where the feet of the Holiest have trod.
This, this is the marvel to mortals revealed
When the silvery trumpets of Christmas have pealed,
That mankind are the children of God.

-Phillips Brooks.