Christmas Past…

I thought that I would share some words and images of Christmas’ long past. Something light and easy tonight for you to just peruse while you take a break from all of your holiday preparations.

An Old Christmas Greeting

Sing Hey! Sing Hey!

For Christmas Day

Twine mistletoe and holly

For friendship glows

In winter snows,

And so let’s all be jolly.

-Nursery Rhyme

The Sugarplum Tree

HAVE you ever heard of the Sugar-Plum Tree?

‘T is a marvel of great renown!

It blooms on the shore of the Lollipop sea

In the garden of Shut-Eye Town;

The fruit that it bears is so wondrously sweet

(As those who have tasted it say)

That good little children have only to eat

Of that fruit to be happy next day.

When you ‘ve got to the tree, you would have a hard time

To capture the fruit which I sing;

The tree is so tall that no person could climb

To the boughs where the sugar-plums swing!

But up in that tree sits a chocolate cat,

And a gingerbread dog prowls below–

And this is the way you contrive to get at

Those sugar-plums tempting you so:

You say but the word to that gingerbread dog

And he barks with such terrible zest

That the chocolate cat is at once all agog,

As her swelling proportions attest.

And the chocolate cat goes cavorting around

From this leafy limb unto that,

And the sugar-plums tumble, of course, to the ground–

Hurrah for that chocolate cat!

There are marshmallows, gumdrops, and peppermint canes,

With stripings of scarlet or gold,

And you carry away of the treasure that rains

As much as your apron can hold!

So come, little child, cuddle closer to me

In your dainty white nightcap and gown,

And I ‘ll rock you away to that Sugar-Plum Tree

In the garden of Shut-Eye Town.

-Eugene Field

Kriss Kringle

Just as the moon was fading
Amid her misty rings,
And every stocking was stuffed
With childhood’s precious things,

Old Kriss Kringle looked around,
And saw on the elm-tree bough,
High hung, an oriole’s nest,
Lonely and empty now.

“Quite a stocking,” he laughed,
“Hung up there on a tree!
I didn’t suppose the birds
Expected a present from me!”

Then old Kriss Kringle, who loves
A joke as well as the best,
Dropped a handful of snowflakes
Into the oriole’s empty nest.

-Thomas Bailey Aldrich

Tickled Red