H.H. All good recipe-books give bills of fare for different occasions, bills of fare for grand dinners, bills of fare for little dinners; dinners to cost so much per head; dinners...
MARY MAPES DODGE We all know how, before the Christmas-tree began to flourish in the home-life of our country, a certain right jolly old elf, with eight tiny reindeer, used to driv...
OLD CAROL God rest you, merry gentlemen, Let nothing you dismay, For Jesus Christ, our Saviour, Was born upon this day. To save us all from Satan's pow'r When we were gone astray....
LEIGH HUNT So many things have been said of late years about Christmas, that it is supposed by some there is no saying more. O they of little faith! What! do they suppose that ever...
NORA ARCHIBALD SMITH Deep in the shelter of the cave, The ass with drooping head Stood weary in the shadow, where His master's hand had led. About the manger oxen lay, Bending a wi...
FRISWELL At Christmas, which is a good holiday for most of us, but especially for that larger and better half of us, the young, there is, as everybody knows, a profusion of good th...
BEN JONSON I sing the birth was born to-night The author both of life and light; The angels so did sound it. And like the ravished shepherds said, Who saw the light, and were afrai...
As Joseph was a-waukin' He heard an angel sing, This night shall be the birthnight Of Christ our heavenly King. His birth-bed shall be neither In housen nor in hall, Nor in the pla...
GEORGE A. BAKER, JR. Brave old times those were. In the first half of the seventeenth century, we mean; before there was any such place as New York and Manhattan Island was occupie...
ROBERT HERRICK In numbers, and but these few, I sing thy birth, O Jesu! Thou pretty baby, born here With sup'rabundant scorn here; Who for thy princely port here, Hadst for thy pla...
DOUGLAS SLADEN 'Tis Christmas, and the North wind blows; 'twas two years yesterday Since from the Lusitania's bows I looked o'er Table Bay, A tripper round the narrow world, a pilg...
PHILLIPS BROOKS 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 bur...
"I'm so tired of Christmas I wish there never would be another one!" exclaimed a discontented-looking little girl, as she sat idly watching her mother arrange a pile of gifts two d...
WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY The play is done--the curtain drops, Slow-falling to the prompter's bell: A moment yet the actor stops, And looks around, to say farewell. It is an irks...
OLIVER BELL BUNCE I hate holidays, said Bachelor Bluff to me, with some little irritation, on a Christmas a few years ago. Then he paused an instant, after which he resumed: I don'...
FELICIA HEMANS Oh! lovely voices of the sky Which hymned the Saviour's birth, Are ye not singing still on high, Ye that sang, Peace on earth? To us yet speak the strains Wherewith,...
All you that to feasting and mirth are inclined, Come here is good news for to pleasure your mind, Old Christmas is come for to keep open house, He scorns to be guilty of starving...
GEORGE WITHER So, now is come our joyfulst feast, Let every man be jolly; Each room with ivy leaves is drest, And every post with holly. Though some churls at our mirth repine, Rou...
F. ARNSTEIN ONLY two more days and Christmas would be here! It had been snowing hard, and Johnny was standing at the window, looking at the soft, white snow which covered the groun...
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH Would that our scrupulous sires had dared to leave Less scanty measure of those graceful rites And usages, whose due return invites A stir of mind too natural to...
ANDREW LANG Between the moonlight and the fire In winter twilights long ago, What ghosts we raised for your desire, To make your merry blood run slow! How old, how grave, how wise...
JOHN STRANGE WINTER IT was getting very near to Christmas time, and all the boys at Miss Ware's school were talking about going home for the holidays. "I shall go to the Christmas...
ANONYMOUS God rest you, merry gentlemen! May nothing you dismay; Not even the dyspeptic plats Through which you'll eat your way; Nor yet the heavy Christmas bills The season bids y...
A German legend for Christmas Eve as told by ELIZABETH HARRISON ONCE upon a time, a long, long time ago, on the night before Christmas, a little child was wandering all alone throu...
BY LUCY WHEELOCK TWO little children were sitting by the fire one cold winter's night. All at once they heard a timid knock at the door and one ran to open it. There, outside in th...
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH The minstrels played their Christmas tune To-night beneath my cottage eaves; While, smitten by a lofty moon, The encircling laurels, thick with leaves, Gave back...
The first Christmas this in which a Roman Senate has sat in Rome since the old-fashioned Roman Senates went under,--or since they "went up," if we take the expressive language of o...
ANONYMOUS Mark well my heavy doleful tale, For Twelfth-day now is come, And now I must no longer sing, And say no words but mum; For I perforce must take my leave Of all my dainty...
The day before Christmas, in the year of our Lord 722. Broad snow-meadows glistening white along the banks of the river Moselle; pallid hill-sides blooming with mystic roses where...
KATHERINE PYLE "COME now, my dear little stars," said Mother Moon, "and I will tell you the Christmas story." Every morning for a week before Christmas, Mother Moon used to call al...