The Gift of the Magi
From the story by O. Henry

One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it was in pennies. Pennies saved one and two at a time. Three times Della counted it. One dollar and eighty-seven cents. And the next day would be Christmas.

There was clearly nothing to do but flop down on the shabby little couch and howl. So Della did it.

When Della finished her cry, she attended to her cheeks with a powder puff. She stood by the window and looked out dully. Tomorrow would be Christmas Day, and she had only $1.87 to buy a present for Jim. Her Jim. Many a happy hour she had spent planning for something nice for him. Something fine and rare and sterling – something just a bit near to being worthy of the honor of being owned by Jim.

Suddenly she whirled from the window and stood before the looking glass. Rapidly she pulled down her hair and let if fall into its full length.

Now, there were two possessions of the James Dillingham Young’s’ in which they both took a mighty pride. One was Jim’s gold watch that had been his father’s and grandfather’s. The other was Della’s hair.

So now Della’s beautiful hair fell about her, rippling and shining like a cascade of brown waters. She did it up again nervously and quickly. Once she faltered for a minute and stood still while a tear or two splashed on the worn red carpet. On went her old brown jacket; on went her old brown hat. With a whirl of skirts and with the brilliant sparkle still in her eyes, she fluttered out the door and down the stairs to the street.

Where she stopped the sign read: “Mme. Sofronie. Hair Goods of All Kinds.” One flight up Della ran, and collected herself, panting.

“Will you buy my hair?” asked Della.

“I buy hair,” said Madame. “Take yer hat off and let’s have a sight of it.”

Down rippled the brown cascade.

“Twenty dollars,” said Madame, lifting the mass with a practiced hand.

“Give it to me quick,” said Della.

Oh, the next two hours were rosy as she ransacked the stores for Jim’s present.

She found it at last. It surely had been made for Jim and no one else. There was no other like it in any of the stores, and she had turned all of them inside out. It was a platinum watch-chain, simple in design, properly proclaiming its value by substance alone and not by ornamentation – as all good things should do. It was even worthy of The Watch. As soon as she saw it she knew that it must be Jim’s. Quietness and value – the description applied to both.

Twenty-one dollars they took from her for it, and she hurried home with the eighty-seven cents. With that chain on his watch Jim might be properly anxious about the time in any company. Grand as the watch was, he sometimes looked at in on the sly on account of the old leather strap he used in place of a chain.

When Della reached home, she got out her curling irons and went to work. Within forty minutes her head was covered with tine close-lying curls that made her look wonderfully like a school-boy. She looked at her reflection in the mirror long, carefully, and critically.

“If Jim doesn’t kill me,” she said to herself, “before he takes a second look at me – But what could I do with a dollar and eighty-seven cents?”

Jim was never late. Della held the watch chain in her hand. She heard his step on the stair and she turned white for just a moment. She had a habit of saying little silent prayers about the simplest everyday things, and now she whispered: “Please, God, make him think I am still pretty.”

The door opened and Jim stepped in and closed it. He looked thin and very serious. Poor fellow, he was only twenty-two – and to be burdened with a family! He needed a new overcoat and he was without gloves.

Jim’s eyes were fixed on Della, and there was an expression in them that could not read. It was not anger, nor surprise, nor disapproval, nor horror, nor any of the sentiments she had been prepared for. He simply stared at her.

“Jim darling,” she cried, “don’t look at me that way. I had my hair cut off and sold it because I couldn’t have lived through Christmas without giving you a present. It’ll grow out again – you won’t mind, will you? I just had to do it. My hair grows awfully fast. Say ‘Merry Christmas!’ Jim and let’s be happy. You don’t know what a beautiful, nice gift I’ve got for you.”

“You’ve cut off your hair?” asked Jim, as if he had not arrived at that fact yet.

“Cut it off and sold it,” said Della. “Don’t you like me just as well anyhow? I’m me without my hair, aren’t I?”

Jim looked about the room curiously.

“You say your hair is gone?”

“You needn’t look for it,” said Della. “It’s sold and gone, I tell you. Be good to me, for it went for you.”

Out of his trance Jim seemed to quickly wake. He enfolded his Della in his arms.

Jim then drew a package from his overcoat pocket and threw it upon the table.

“Don’t make any mistake, Dell,” he said, “about me. I don’t think there’s anything in the way of a haircut or a shave or shampoo that could make me like my girl any less. But if you’ll unwrap that package you may see why you had me going a while at first.”

White fingers tore at the string and paper. And then an ecstatic scream of joy; and then, alas! A quick feminine change to tears and wails, necessitating all of Jim’s comforting powers.

For there lay The Combs – the set of combs that Della had wanted for so long. Beautiful combs, pure tortoise shell with jeweled rims – just the shade to wear in the beautiful vanished hair. They were expensive combs, she knew, and her heart had yearned for them without the least hope of possession. And now they were hers -- but the hair was gone.

She hugged them to her, and at length was able to look up with a smile and say: “My hair grows so fast, Jim!”

And then Della leaped up and cried, “Oh, oh!”

Jim had not yet seen his beautiful present. She held it out to him eagerly upon her open palm. The precious metal seemed to flash with a reflection of her own bright spirit.

“Isn’t it a dandy, Jim? I hunted all over town to find it. You’ll have to look at the time a hundred times a day now. Give me your watch. I want to see how it looks on it.”

Instead of obeying, Jim tumbled down on the couch and put his hands under the back of his head and smiled.

“Dell,” he said, “Let’s put our Christmas present away and keep ’em awhile. They’re too nice to use just now. I sold the watch to get the money to buy your combs. And now, suppose you put dinner on.”

Eight dollars a week or a million a year – What is the difference?

The Magi, as you know, were wise men – who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents. Being wise, their gifts were no doubt wise ones, possibly bearing the privilege of exchange in case of duplication. And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. Of all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the Magi.

Christmas is for Sharing
By Richard Warner


I knew that Homer had wanted canyon boots for as long as I could remember. He was eleven and I ten, and we had spent many nights under the blue quilts at the cabin talking about how great it would be to have some real boots – boots that would climb through thorny bushes, that would ward off rattlesnakes, that would nudge the ribs of the pony; we had planned the kind of leather they should be and what kind of decoration they should be and what kind of decoration they should have. But we both knew it was just talk. The Depression had been hard on Father’s business, and even shoes for school were usually half-soled hand-me-downs.

Christmas that year had promised as always to be exciting, though mainly because of the handmade things we’d worked on in school for our parents. We never had money to spend on each other, but we had caught early in our lives a sort of contagion from our mother. She loved to give, and her anticipation of the joy that a just right gift would bring to someone, infected our whole household. We were swept up in breathless waiting to see how others would like what we had to give. Secrecy ruled – open exaggerated secrecy, as we made and hid our gifts. The only one whose hiding place we never discovered was my Grandmother’s. Her gifts seemed to materialize by magic on Christmas morning and were always more expensive than they should have been.

That Christmas I was glowing because Mother had been so happy with the parchment lampshade I’d made in the fourth grade, and Father had raved over the clay jewelry case I had molded and baked for him. Gill and Emma Lou had been pleased with the figures I’d whittled out of clothespins, and Homer had liked the Scout pin I’d bargained for with my flint. Then Grandma started to pass out her presents.

Mine was heavy and square. I’d been in the hospital that year and then on crutches, and I’d wondered how it would be to have an erector set to build with. Grandma had a knack at reading boy’s minds, and I was sure that’s what it was. But it wasn’t. It was a pair of boots, brown tangy-smelling leather boots.

I looked quickly to Homer’s package. His was a sweater. He’d needed one all fall. I wanted to cover my box before he saw what it was. I didn’t want the boots; they should have been his. He came toward me, asking to see, and I started to say, “I’m sorry, bruv.” But he was grinning, and he shouted, “Hey everybody – look what Richard’s got.” He swooped the boots out of the box, fondled them like treasure, and then sat on the floor at my feet to take off my half-soled shoes and put on the brand new boots.

I don’t remember how the boots felt, nor even how they looked. But Christmas rang in my soul because my brother was glad for me.

A Different Kind of Christmas


Martha had tried to ignore the approach of Christmas. She would have kept it almost entirely out of her thoughts if Jed had not come eagerly into the cabin one day, stomping the snow from his cold feet as he said in an excited voice, “Martha, we’re going to have a Christmas tree this year, anyway. I spotted a cedar on that rise out south of the wheat field, over near the Norton’s place. It’s a scrubby thing, but it will do since we can’t get a pine. Maybe Christmas will be a little different here, but it will still be the kind of Christmas we used to have.”

As she shook her head, Martha noticed that Daniel glanced quickly up from the corner where he was playing, patiently tying together some sticks with bits of string left over from the quilt she had tied a few days earlier. She drew Jed as far away from the boy as possible.

“I don’t want a tree,” she said. “We won’t be celebrating Christmas. Even a tree couldn’t make it the kind of Christmas we used to have.”

“Martha, we’ve got to do something for the boy at least. Children set such store by Christmas.”

“Don’t you think I know? All those years of fixing things for Maybelle and Stellie. I know all about the kids and Christmas.” She stopped and drew a deep breath, glancing over to see that Daniel was occupied and not listening. “But I can’t do those things for him. It would be like a knife in the heart, fixing a tree and baking cookies and making things for another woman’s child when my own girls are back there on that prairie.”

“Martha, Martha,” Jed said softly. “It’s been almost a year and a half. That’s over, and Danny needs you. He needs a Christmas like he remembers.

She turned her back to his pleading face. “I can’t,” she said.

Jed touched her shoulder gently, “I know how hard it is for you, Martha. But think of the boy.” He turned and went back out into the snowy weather.

Think of the boy. Why should she think of him, when her own children, her two blue-eyes, golden-curled daughters, had been left beside the trail back there on that endless, empty prairie? The boy came to her not because she wanted him, but because she couldn’t say “no” to the bishop back in Salt Lake City last April before they came to settle in this valley.

Bishop Clay had brought Daniel to her and Jed one day and said, “I want you to care for this lad. His mother dies on the trek last summer and his pa passed away last week. He needs a good home.”

Jed had gripped the bishop’s hand and with tears in his eyes, thanked him, but Martha had turned away from the sight of the thin, ragged, six-year old boy who stood before them, not fast enough, however, to miss the sudden brief smile he flashed at her. A smile that should have caught her heart and opened it wide. Her heart was closed, though, locked tightly around the memory of her two gentle little girls. She didn't want a noisy, rowdy boy handing around, disturbing those memories, filling the cabin with a boy’s loud games.

Yet she had taken him, because she felt she had no choice. Faced with the bishop’s request – more of an order, really – and Jed’s obvious joy, she couldn’t refuse.

He came with them out to this new valley west of the Salt Lake settlement and had proved himself a great help to Jed, despite his young age. Sometimes Martha felt pity for him, but she didn’t love him. With Jed it was different. He had accepted Daniel immediately as his own son and enjoyed having a boy with him. They had a special relationship.

Daniel mentioned Christmas only once. One day it was too cold and snowy to play outside and he had been humming softly to himself as he played in his corner. Suddenly, he looked up at Martha and asked, “Can you sing, Aunt Martha?”

Martha paused and straightened up from the table where she was kneading bread. She used to sing for her girls all the time. “No, I can’t, Daniel,” she said. “Not any more.”

“My mother used to sing a pretty song at Christmas,” he said. “I wish I could remember it.”

On the day before Christmas, Jed went through the deep snow to do some chores for Brother Norton, who was ill. Daniel was alone outside most of the day, although he made several rather furtive trips in and out of the cabin. On one trip, he took the sticks he had been tying together.

Toward evening, Martha went out to the stable to milk Rosie, since Jed had not yet returned. As she approached, she saw there was light inside. Opening the door softly, she peered within. Daniel had lit the barn lantern, and with its glow, he knelt in the straw by Rosie’s stall. In front of him were the sticks he had tied together, which Martha recognized now as a crude cradle. It held Stellie’s rag doll, all wrapped up in the white shawl Martha kept in her trunk. Her first impulse was to rush in and snatch it, but she stopped because the scene was strangely beautiful in the soft light from the lantern. Rosie and the two sheep stood close by, watching Daniel. He seemed to be addressing them when he spoke.

“The shepherds came following the star,” he was saying. “And they found the baby Jesus who had been born in a stable.” He paused for a moment, then went on. “And his mother loved him.”

Martha felt suddenly that she couldn’t breathe. Another mother another day, had lover her boy, and had told him the beautiful story of the Christ Child with such love that he hadn’t forgot it, young as he was. And she, Martha, had failed that mother.

In the silence she began to sing. “Silent night,” she sang. “Holy night.”

Daniel didn’t move until the song was finished. Then he turned with that quick hear-melting smile.

“That’s the one,” he whispered. “That’s the song that my mother used to sing to me.”

Martha ran forward and gathered the boy into her arms. He responded immediately, clasping his arms tightly around her.

“Danny,” she said, sitting on the edge of Rosie’s manger, “let’s go in and get the cabin ready for Christmas. Maybe it isn’t too late for Jed – for Pa to get that tree. It might be a little different kind of Christmas, but it will still be a little like the Christmases we used to know.”

“Do you mind it being different?” Danny asked. “I mean a boy instead of your girls?”

Martha wondered how long it would take her to make up to him for the hurt she had inflicted these many months. “No,” she said. “After all, the Baby Jesus was a boy.”

“That’s right,” he said wonderingly.

She set him down on the floor and put her arm around his shoulders.

“Merry Christmas,” she said. “Merry Christmas, Danny.”

He looked up at her with a smile that did not fade quickly away this time, a sweet smile full of love had been waiting to give her.

“Merry Christmas,” he said, and then added softly, “Mother.”

The Cobbler and His Guest
A Yuletide Legend, by Anne MuCollum Boyles


There once lived in the city of Marseilles and old shoemaker, loved and honored by his neighbors, who affectionately called him Father Martin. One Christmas Eve as he sat alone in his little shop reading of the visit of the Wise Men to the infant Jesus, and of the gifts they brought. He said to himself, “If tomorrow were the first Christmas, and if this Jesus were to be born in Marseilles this night, I know what I would give him!” He rose from his stool and took from a shelf overhead two tiny shoes of softest snow white leather with bright silver buckles. “I would give him these, my finest work.” Then he paused and reflected. “But I am a foolish old man,” he continued… “The Master has no need of my poor gifts.”

Replacing the shoes, he blew out the candle and retired to rest. Hardly had he closed his eyes it seemed, when he heard a voice call his name…”Martin! Martin!” Intuitively he felt a presence. Then the voice spoke again…”Martin, you have wished to see me. Tomorrow I shall pass by your window. If you see me, and bid me enter, I shall be your guest at your table.”

Father Martin did not sleep that night for joy. And before it was yet dawn he rose and swept and tidied up his little shop. He spread fresh sand upon the floor, and wreathed green boughs of fir along the rafters. On the spotless linen-covered table he placed a loaf of white bread, a jar of honey, and a pitcher of milk.

When all was in readiness, he took up his patient vigil at the window.

Presently he saw an old street-sweeper by, blowing upon his thin, gnarled hands to warm them. “Poor fellow, he must be half frozen,” thought Martin. Opening the door he called out to him, “Come in my friend and warm yourself, and drink something hot.” And the man gratefully accepted the invitation.

An hour passed, and Martin saw a young, miserably clothed woman, carrying a baby. She paused wearily to rest in the shelter of his doorway. The heart of the old cobbler was touched. Quickly he flung open the door. “Come in and warm while you rest,” he said to her. “You do not look well,” he remarked.

“I am going to the hospital. I hope they will take me in, and my baby boy,” she explained. “My husband is at sea, and I am ill, without a soup.”

“Poor child,” cried Father Martin. “You must eat something while you are getting warm. No? Then let me give a cup of milk to the little one. Ah! What a bright, pretty little fellow he is! … Why, you have put no shoes on him!”

“I have no shoes for him,” sighed the mother.

“Then he shall have this lovely pair I finished yesterday.”

And Father Martin took down from the shelf the soft little snow-white shoes he had admired the evening before. He slipped them on the child’s feet…they fit perfectly. And shortly the poor young mother went on her way, two shoes in her hand and tearful with gratitude.

And Father Martin resumed his post at the window. Hour after hour went by, and although many people passed his window, and although many people shared the hospitality of the old cobbler, the expected guest did not appear.

“It was only a dream,” he signed, with a heavy heart. “I did hope and believe, but he has not come.”

Suddenly, so it seemed to his weary eyes, the room was flooded with a strange light. And to the cobbler’s astonished vision, there appeared before him, one by one, the poor street sweeper, the sick mother and her child, and all the people whom he had aided during the day. And each smiled at him and said: “Have you not seen me? Did I not sit at your table?” Then they vanished from his view.

At last, out of the silence, Father Martin heard again the gentle voice repeating the old familiar words: “Whosoever shall receive one such in my name, receiveth me… for I was a stranger, and ye took me in… Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.”

Christmas Day in the Morning
By Pearl S. Buck


He woke suddenly, and completely. It was four o’clock, the hour at which his father had always called him to get up and help with the milking. Strange how the habits of his youth clung to him still! Fifty years ago, and his father had been dead for thirty years, and yet he waked at four o’clock in the morning. He had trained himself to turn over and go to sleep. But this morning it was Christmas; he did not try to sleep.

Why did he feel so awake tonight? He slipped back in time, as he did so easily nowadays. He was fifteen years old and still on his father’s farm. He loved his father. He had not know it until one day a few days before Christmas when he had overheard what his father was saying to his mother.

“Mary, I hate to call Rob in the mornings. He’s growing so fast and he needs his sleep. If you could see how he sleeps when I go in to wake him up! I wish I could manage alone.”

“Well, you can’t Adam.” His mother’s voice was brisk, “Besides, he isn’t a child anymore. It’s time he took his turn.”

“Yes,” his father said slowly. “But I sure to hate to wake him.”

When he heard these words, something in him woke; his father loved him! He had never thought of it before, taking for granted the tie of their blood. Neither his father nor his mother talked about loving their children – they had no time for such things. There was always so much to do on the farm.

Now that he knew his father loved him, there would be no more loitering in the mornings and having to be called again. He got up after that, stumbling blind with sleep, and pulled on his clothes, his eyes tight shut, but he got up.

And then on the night before Christmas, that year when he was fifteen, he lay for a few minutes thinking about the next day. They were poor and most of the excitement was in the turkey they had raised themselves and the mince pies his mother made. His sisters sewed presents and his mother and father always bought something he needed, not only a warm jacket, maybe but something more, such as a book. And he saved and bought them each something, too.

He wished, that Christmas he was fifteen, he had a better present for his father. As usual he had gone to the ten-cent store and bought a tie. It had seemed nice enough until he lay thinking the night before Christmas. He looked out of his attic window, the stars were bright.

“Dad,” he had once asked when he was a little boy, “What is a stable?”

“It’s just a barn,” his father had replied, “like ours.”

“Then Jesus had been born in a barn, and to a barn the shepherds had come…”

The thought stuck him like a silver dagger. Why should he not give his father a special gift too, out there in the barn? He cold get up early, earlier than four, and he could creep into the barn and get all the milking done. He’d do it alone, milk and clean up, and then when his father went to start the milking, he’d see it all done. And he would know who had done it. He laughed to himself as he gazed at the stars. It was what he would do and he mustn’t sleep too sound.

He must have waked twenty times, scratching a match each time to look at his old watch – midnight, and half past one, and then two o’clock.

At a quarter to three he got up and put on his clothes. He crept downstairs, careful of the creaky boards, and let himself out. The cows looked at him, sleepy and surprised. It was too early for them too.

He had never milked all alone before, but it seemed almost easy. He kept thinking about his father’s surprise. His father would come in and get him, saying he would get things started while Rob was getting dressed. He’d go to the barn; open the door, and then he’d go to get the two empty milk cans. But they wouldn’t be waiting or empty; they’d be standing in the milk house, filled.

“What the…,” he could hear his father exclaiming.

He smiled and milked steadily, two strong streams rushing into the pail, frothing and fragrant.

The task went more easily than he had ever known it to go before. Milking for once was not a chore. It was something else, a gift to his father, who loved him. He finished, the two milk cans were full, and he covered them and closed the milk house door carefully. Back in his room he had only a minute to pull off his clothes in the darkness and jump into bed, for he heard his father up. He put the covers over his head to silence his quick breathing. The door opened.

“Rob!” his father called. “We have to get up, son, even if it is Christmas.”

“Aw-right,” he said sleepily.

The door closed and he lay still, laughing to himself. In just a few minutes his father would know. His dancing heart was ready to jump from his body.

The minutes were endless – ten, fifteen, he did not know how many – and he heard his father’s footsteps again. The door opened and he lay still.

“Rob!”

“Yes, Dad –“

His father was laughing, a queer, sobbing sort of laugh.

“Thought you’d fool me, did you?” His father was standing beside his bed, feeling for him, pulling away the cover.

“It’s for Christmas, Dad!”

He found his father and clutched him in a great hug. He felt his father’s arms go around him. It was dark and they could not see each other’s faces.

“Rob, I thank you. Nobody ever did a nicer thing!”

“Oh, dad, I want you to know, I do want to be good!” The words broke from him of their own will. He did not know what to say. His heart was bursting with love.

He got up and pulled on his clothes again and they went down to the Christmas tree. Oh, what a Christmas, and how his heart had nearly burst again with shyness and pride as his father told his mother and made the three younger children listen about how, he Rob, had got up all by himself.

“The best Christmas gift I ever had, and I’ll remember it, son, every year on Christmas morning, so long as I live.”

They had both remembered it, and now that his father was dead, he remembered it alone; that blessed Christmas dawn when, alone with the cows in the barn, he had made his first gift of true love.

The Sixth Word
Especially for Mormons, Vol. 2


Just a week before Christmas, “I had a visitor. This is how it happened. I had just finished the household chores and was preparing to go to bed, when I heard a noise in the front of the house. I opened the door of the front room, and to my surprise, Santa Claus himself stepped out from behind the Christmas tree. He placed his fingers over his mouth so I would not cry out.”

“What are you doing…?” I started to ask, but the words choked up in my throat as I saw he had tears in his eyes. His usual jolly manner was gone – gone was the eager, boisterous soul we all know.

He then answered me with a simple statement of “Teach the children.” I was puzzled. What did he mean? He anticipated my question and with one quick movement brought forth a miniature toy bag from behind the tree. As I stood there bewildered, Santa said again, “Teach the children, teach them the old meaning of Christmas – the meanings that Christmas nowadays has forgotten.”

I started to say, “How can I…” when Santa reached into the toy bag and pulled out a brilliant shiny star.

“Teach the children that the star was the heavenly sign of promise long ages ago. God promised a Savior for the world and the star was a sign of the fulfillment of that promise. The countless shining stars at night – one for each man – now show the burning hope of all mankind.” Santa gently laid the star upon the fireplace mantle and drew forth from the bag a glittering red Christmas tree ornament.

“Teach the children red is the first color of Christmas. It was first used by the faithful people to remind them of the blood which was shed for all the people by the Savior. Christ gave His life and shed His blood that every man might have God’s gift of Eternal Life. Red is deep, intense, vivid – it is the greatest color of all. It is the symbol of the gift of God.”

“Teach the children,” he said as he dislodged a small Christmas tree from the depths of the toy bag. He placed it before the mantle and gently hung the red ornament on it. The deep green of the fir tree was a perfect background for the ornament. Here was the second color of Christmas.

“The pure green color of the stately fir tree remains green all year round,” he said. “This depicts the everlasting hope of mankind. Green is the youthful, hopeful, abundant color of nature. All the needles point heavenward – symbols of Man’s returning thoughts toward heaven. The great green tree has been man’s best friend. It has sheltered him, warmed him, made beauty for him.” Suddenly, I heard a soft tinkling sound.

“Teach the children that as the lost sheep are found by the sound of the bell, it should ring for man to return to the fold -- it means guidance and return. It further signifies that all are precious in the eyes of the Lord. As the soft sound of the bell faded into the night, Santa drew forth a candle. He placed it on the mantle and the soft glow from its tiny flame cast a glow about the darkened room. Odd shapes in shadows slowly danced and weaved upon the walls.”

“Teach the children,” whispered Santa, “that the candle shows man’s thanks for the star of long ago. Its small light is the mirror of starlight. At first, candles were placed on the trees – they were like many glowing stars shining against the dark green. The colored lights have now taken over in remembrance.”

Santa turned the small Christmas tree lights on and picked up a gift from under the tree. He pointed to the large bow and said, “A bow is placed on a present to remind us of the spirit of the brotherhood of man. We should remember that the bow is tied as men should be tied, all of us together, with the bonds of good will toward each other. Good will forever is the message of the bow.”

Santa slung his bag over his shoulder and began to reach for the candy cane placed high on the tree. He unfastened it and reached out toward me with it.

“Teach the children that the candy cane represents the shepherd’s crook. The crook on the staff helps bring back the stray sheep to the flock. The candy cane represents the helping hand we should show at Christmas time. The candy cane is the symbol that we are our brothers’ keepers.”

As Santa looked about the room, a feeling of satisfaction shone in his face. He read wonderment in my eyes, and I am sure he sensed admiration for this night.

He reached into his bag and brought forth a large holly wreath. He placed it on the door and said, “Please teach the children that the wreath symbolizes the eternal nature of love; it never ceases, stops or ends. It is the one continuous round of affection. The wreath does double duty. It is made of many things and in many colors. It should remind us of all the things of Christmas. Please teach the children.”

The Great Walled Country
By Raymond MacDonald Alden


Away at the North End of the World, farther than men have ever gone with their ships or their sleds is a land filled with children. It’s filled with children because nobody who lives there ever grows up. The king and queen, the princes and the courtiers, may be as old as you please, but they are children for all that. They play a great deal of the time with dolls and tin soldiers, and every night at seven o’clock have a bowl of bread and milk and go to bed.

There are all sorts of curious things about the way they live in the Great Walled Country, but this story is only of their Christmas season. One can imagine what a fine thing their Christmas must be so near the North Pole, with ice and snow everywhere; but this is not all. Grandfather Christmas lives just on the north side of the country, so that his house leans against the Great Wall and would tip over if it were not for its support. Grandfather Christmas is his name in the Great Walled Country; no doubt we would call him Santa Claus here. At any rate, he is the same person, and best of all the children in the world, he loves the children behind the great wall of ice.

One very pleasant thing about having Grandfather Christmas for a neighbor is that in the Great Walled Country they never have to buy their Christmas presents. Every year on the day before Christmas, before he makes up his bundles for the rest of the world, Grandfather Christmas goes into a great forest of Christmas trees that grows just back of the homes and fills the trees with candy and books and toys and all sorts of good things. So when night comes, all the children wrap up snugly, and they go into the forest to gather gifts for their friends. Each one goes by himself, so that none of this friends can see what he has gathered, and no one ever thinks of such a thing as taking a present for himself. The forest is so big that there is room for all the people and no one sees the secrets and presents, and there are always enough nice things to go around.

But there was once a time, so many years ago that they would have forgotten about it if the story were not written in the Big book and read to them every year, when the children in the Great Walled Country had a very strange Christmas. There came a visitor to the land. He was an old man, and was the first stranger, for very many years, who had succeeded in getting over the wall.

When this old man inquired about their Christmas celebration, and was told how they carried it out every year, he said to the king, “That is very well, but I should think that children who have Grandfather Christmas for a neighbor could find a better and easier way. You tell me you all go out on Christmas Eve to gather presents to give to one another the next morning. Why take so much trouble, and act in such a roundabout way? Why not go out together, and everyone get his own present? That would save the trouble of dividing them again, and everyone could pick out just what he wanted for himself!”

They decided it was a very practical idea and so the proclamation was made, and the plan seemed as wise to the children of the country as it had to the king and his counselors. Everyone at some time had been a little disappointed with his Christmas gifts, and now there would be no danger of that.

On Christmas Eve they always had a meeting at the palace, and sang carols until the time for going to the forest. When the clock struck ten, everyone said, “I wish you a Merry Christmas!” to the person nearest him, and then they separated to go on their way to the forest. On this particular night is seemed to the king that the music was not quite so merry as usual, and that when the children spoke to one another their eyes did not shine as gladly as he had notice them in other years; but there could be no reason for this, since everyone was expecting a better time than usual. So he thought no more of it.

There was only one other person at the palace that night who was not pleased with the new proclamation about the Christmas gifts. This was a little boy named Inge, who lived not far from the palace with his sister. Now this sister was a cripple, and had to sit all day looking out of the window from her chair; and Inge took care of her, and tried to make her life happy from morning to night. He had always gone to the forest on Christmas Eve and returned with his arms and pockets full of pretty things for his sister, which would keep her amused all the coming year. And although she was not able to go after presents for her brother, he did not mind at all, especially as he had other friends who never forgot to divide their good things with him.

But now, said Inge to himself, what would his sister do? For the king had ordered that no one should gather presents except for himself, or any more than he could carry away at once. All of Inge’s friends were busy planning what they would pick for themselves, but the poor crippled child could not go a step toward the forest. After thinking about it for a long time, Inge decided that it would not be wrong, if, instead of taking gifts for himself, he took them altogether for his sister. This he would be very glad to do; for what did a boy who could run about and play in the snow, care for presents, compared with a little girl who could only sit still and watch others having a good time? Inge did not ask the advice of anyone, for he was a little afraid others would tell him not to do it, but he silently made up his mind not to obey the proclamation.

And now the chimes had struck ten, and the children were making their way toward the forest, in starlight that was so bright that is almost showed their shadows on the sparkling snow. As soon as they came to the edge of the forest, they separated, each one going by himself in the old way, though now there was really no reason why they should have secrets from one another.

Ten minutes later, if you had been in the forest, you might have seen the children standing in dismay with tears on their faces, and exclaiming that they had never seen such a Christmas Eve before. For as they looked eagerly about them in the low-bending branches of the evergreen trees, they saw nothing hanging from them that they had seen other Christmas Eves. No presents. No one could guess whether Grandfather Christmas had forgotten them, or whether some dreadful accident had kept him away.

As the children were trooping out of the forest after hours of weary searching, some of them came upon little Inge, who carried over his shoulder a bag that seemed to be full to overflowing. When he saw them looking at him he cried; “Are they not beautiful things? I think Grandfather Christmas was never so good to us before.”

“Why, what do you mean?” cried the children. “There are no presents in the forest!”

“No presents!” Inge said. “I have a bag full of them.” But he did not offer to show them, because he did not want the children to see that they were really all for his sister, instead of him.

Then the children begged him to tell them in what part of the forest he had found his presents, and he turned back and pointed them to the place where he had been.

“I left many more behind than I brought away,” he said. “There they are! I can see some of the things shining on the trees even from here.”

But when the children followed his footsteps in the snow to the place where he had been, they still saw nothing on the trees, and thought that Inge must be walking in his sleep, and dreaming that he had found presents. Perhaps he had filled his bag with the cones from the evergreen trees.

On Christmas Day there was sadness through the Great Walled Country. But those who came to the house of Inge and his sister saw plenty of books and dolls and beautiful toys piled up about the little cripples chair, and when they asked where those things came from and were told, “Why, from the Christmas Tree forest.” And they shook their head, not knowing what it meant.

The king held a council and appointed a committee to go on a very hard journey to visit Grandfather Christmas and see if they could find out what was the matter.

They had to go down Father Christmas’ chimney and when they reached the bottom of it they found themselves in the very room where Grandfather Christmas lay sound asleep. It was very difficult to wake him, but when they finally did, the prince, who was in charge of the committee said, “Oh, sir! We have come from the king of the Great Walled Country, who has sent us to ask why you forgot us this Christmas, and left no presents in the forest?”

“No presents?” said Grandfather Christmas. “I never forgot anything. The presents were there. You did not see them, that’s all.”

The children told him they had searched long and hard and found nothing. “Indeed!” said Grandfather Christmas.

“And did little Inge, the boy with the crippled sister find none?” The committee had heard about that and didn’t know what to say.

“The presents were there, but they were not intended for children who were looking only for themselves. I am not surprised that you could not see them. Remember, that not everything that wise travelers tell you is wise.”

The Proclamation was made next year that everyone was to seek gifts for others!


A Brother Like That
Especially for Mormons, Vol. 2


A friend of mine named Paul received a new car from his brother as a pre-Christmas present. On Christmas Eve, when Paul came out of his office, a street urchin was walking around the shiny new car, admiring it.

“Is this your car, mister?” he asked.

Paul nodded. “My brother gave it to me for Christmas.”

The boy looked astounded. “You mean your brother gave it to you, and it didn’t cost you anything? Gosh, I wish…”

He hesitated, and Paul knew what he was going to wish. He was going to wish he had a brother like that. But what the lad said jarred Paul all the way down to his heels.

“I wish,” the boy went on, “that I could be a brother like that.”

Paul looked at the boy in astonishment, then impulsively added, “Would you like a ride in my new car?”

“Oh, yes, I’d love that!”

After a short ride the urchin turned, and with his eyes aglow said, “Mister, would you mind driving in front of my house?”

Paul smiled a little. He thought he knew what the lad wanted. He wanted to show his neighbors that he could ride home in a big automobile. But Paul was wrong again.

“Will you stop right where those steps are?” the boy asked. He ran up the steps. Then in a little while, Paul heard him coming back, but he was not coming fast. He was carrying his little polio-crippled brother. He sat down on the bottom step, then sort of squeezed up right against him and pointed to the car.

“There she is, Buddy, just like I told you upstairs. His brother gave it to him for Christmas, and it didn’t cost him a cent, and someday I’m gonna give you one just like it; then you can see for yourself all the pretty things in the Christmas windows that I’ve been trying to tell you about.”

Paul got out and lifted the little lad into the front seat of his car. The shining-eyed older brother climbed in beside him and the three of them began a memorable holiday ride.

That Christmas Eve, Paul learned what Jesus meant when He said, “It is more blessed to give...”

Why the Chimes Rang
By Raymond MacDonald Alden


There was once, in a far-away country where few people have ever traveled, a wonderful church. It stood on a high hill in the midst of a great city; and every Sunday, as well as on sacred days like Christmas, thousands of people climbed the hill to its great archways, looking like lines of ants all moving in the same direction.

When you came to the building itself, you found stone columns and dark passages, and a grand entrance leading to the main room of the church. This room was so long that one standing at the doorway could scarcely see to the other end, where the choir stood by the marble altar. In the farthest corner was the organ; and this organ was so loud, that sometimes when it played, the people for miles around would close their shutters and prepare for a great thunderstorm. Altogether, no such church as this was ever seen before, especially when it was lighted up for some festival, and crowded with people, young and old. But the strangest thing about the whole building was the wonderful chime of bells.

At one corner of the church was a great gray tower, with ivy growing over it as far up as one could see. I say as far as one could see, because the tower was quite great enough to fit the great church, and it rose so far into the sky that it was only in very fair weather that any one claimed to be able to see the top. Even then one could not be certain that it was in sight. Up, and up, and up climbed the stones and the ivy; and, as the men who built the church had been dead for hundreds of years, every one had forgotten how high the tower was supposed to be.

Now all the people knew that at the top of the tower was a chime of Christmas bells. They had hung there ever since the church had been build, and were the most beautiful bells in the world. Some thought it was because a great musician had cast them and arranged them in their place; others said it was because of the great height, which reached up where the air was clearest and purest; however that might be, no one who had ever heard the chimes denied that they were the sweetest in the world. Some described them as sounding like angels far up in the sky; others, as sounding like strange winds singing through the trees.

But the fact was that no one had heard them for years and years. There was an old man living not far from the church, who said that his mother had spoken of hearing them when she was a little girl, and he was the only one who was sure of as much as that. They were Christmas chimes, you see, and were not meant to be played by men or on common days. It was the custom on Christmas Eve for all the people to bring to the church their offerings to the Christ child; and when the greatest and best offering was laid on the altar, there used to come sounding through the music of the choir the Christmas chimes far up in the tower. Some said that the wind rang them, and others that they were so high that the angels could set them swinging. But for many long years they had never been heard. It was said that people had been growing less careful of their gifts for the Christ child, and that no offering was brought, great enough to deserve the music of the chimes.

Every Christmas Eve the rich people still crowded to the altar, each one trying to bring some better gift than any other, without giving anything that he wanted for himself, and the church was crowded with those who thought that perhaps the wonderful bells might be heard again. But although the service was splendid, and the offerings plenty, only the roar of the wind could be heard, far up in the stone tower.

Now, a number of miles from the city, in a little country village, where nothing could be seen of the great church but glimpses of the tower when the weather was fine, lived a boy name Pedro, and his little brother. They knew very little about the Christmas chimes, but they had heard of the service in the church on Christmas Eve, and had a secret plan, which they had often talked over when by themselves, to go to see the beautiful celebration.

“Nobody can guess, Little Brother,” Pedro would say, “all the fine things there are to see and hear; and I have even heard it said that the Christ child sometimes comes down to bless the service. What if we could see Him?”

The day before Christmas was bitterly cold, with a few lonely snowflakes flying in the air, and a hard white crust on the ground. Sure enough, Pedro and Little Brother were able to slip quietly away early in the afternoon; and although the walking was hard in the frosty air, before nightfall they had trudged so far, hand in hand, that they saw the lights of the big city just ahead of them. Indeed, they were about the enter one to the great gates in the wall that surrounded it, when they saw something dark on the snow near their path, and stepped aside to look at it.

It was a poor woman, who had fallen just outside the city, too sick and tired to get in where she might have found shelter. The soft snow made of a drift a sort of pillow for her, and she would soon be sound asleep, in the wintry air, that no one could ever waken her again. All this Pedro saw in a moment, and he knelt down beside her and tried to rouse her, even tugging at her arm a little, as thought he would have tried to carry her away. He turned her face toward him, so that he could rum some of the snow on it, an when he had looked at her silently a moment he stood up again and said:

“It’s no use, Little Brother. You will have to go on alone.”

“Alone?” cried Little Brother. “And you not see the Christmas festival?”

“No,” said Pedro, and he could not keep back a bit of a choking sound in his throat. “See this poor woman. Her face looks like the Madonna in the chapel window, and she will freeze to death if nobody cares for her. Every one has gone to the church now, but when you come back you can bring some one to help her. I will rub her to keep her from freezing, and perhaps get her to eat the bun that is left in my pocket.”

“But I can not bear to leave you, and go on alone,” said Little Brother.

“Both of us need not miss the service,” said Pedro, “and it had better be I than you. You can easily find your way to the church; and you must see and hear everything twice, Little Brother – once for you and once for me. I am sure the Christ child must know how I should love to come with you and worship Him; and oh! If you get a chance, Little Brother, to slip up to the altar without getting in any one’s way, take this little silver piece of mine, and lay it down for my offering, when no one is looking. Do not forget where you have left me, and forgive me for not going with you.”

In this way he hurried Little Brother off to the city, and winked hard to keep back the tears, as he heard the crunching footsteps sounding farther and farther away in the twilight. It was pretty hard to lose the music and splendor of the Christmas celebration that he had been planning for so long, and spend the time instead in that lonely place in the snow.

The great church was a wonderful place that night. Every one said that it had never looked so bright and beautiful before. When the organ played and the thousands of people sang, the walls shook with the sound, and little Pedro, away outside the city wall, felt the earth tremble around him.

At the close of the service came the procession with the offerings to be laid on the altar. Rich men and great men marched proudly up to lay down their gifts to the Christ child. Some brought wonderful jewels, some baskets of gold so heavy that they could scarcely carry them down the aisle. A great writer laid down a book that he had been making for years and years. And last of all walked the king of the country, hoping with all the rest to win for himself the chime of the Christmas bells. There went a great murmur through the church, as the people saw the king take from his head the royal crown, all set with precious stones, and lay it gleaming on the alter, as his offering tot the Holy Child. “Surely,” everyone said, “we shall never hear the bells now, for nothing like this has ever happened before.”

But still only the cold old wind was heard in the tower, and the people shook their heads; and some of them said, as they had before, that they never really believed the story of the chimes, and doubted if they ever rang at all.

The procession was over, and the choir began the closing hymn. Suddenly the organist stopped playing as though he had been shot, and every one looked at the old minister, who was standing by the altar, holding up his hand for silence. Not a sound could be heard from any one in the church, but as all the people strained their ears to listen, there came softly, but distinctly, swinging through the air, the sound of the chimes in the tower. So far away, and yet so clear the music seemed – so much sweeter were the notes than anything that had been heard before, rising and falling away up there in the sky, that the people in the church sat for a moment as still as though something held each of them by the shoulders. Then they all stood up together and stared straight at the altar, to see what great gift had awakened the long-silent bells.

But all that the nearest of them saw was the childish figure of Little Brother, who had crept softly down the aisle when no one was looking, and had laid Pedro’s little piece of silver on the altar.


Keeping Baby Warm
By Lynda H. Laughlin


It was an inexpensive dime-store Nativity set, and he was only three years old. His back was toward me, but I could see that his chubby little hands were busily working on something at the old table.

“What are you ding?” I asked him impatiently, annoyed at him for touching the decorations after he had been told not to.

As I started toward the scene of his latest mischief, he turned toward me with wide blue eyes filling and a single tear starting down his cherubic cheek. Then I saw it, a carefully folded tissue had been tenderly placed over the small ceramic infant.

“Baby Jesus was cold, Mommy,” he whispered.

Ten years have passed, and the tiny Nativity has been replaced by a much large one. But this year, as every year, I found a carefully folded tissue covering the baby Jesus. I think I know who did it, and I hope he never stops.


A Christmas Prayer
By Robert Louis Stevenson


Loving Father, help us remember the birth of Jesus, that we may share in the song of the angels, the gladness of the shepherds, and the worship of the wise men.

Close the door of hate and open the door of love all over the world.

Let kindness come with every gift and good desires with every greeting.

Deliver us from evil by the blessing which Christ brings, and teach us to be merry with clear hearts.

May the Christmas morning make us happy to be Thy children, and the Christmas evening bring us to our beds with grateful thoughts, forgiving and forgiven, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

Ancient America Views the First Christmas
From the Book of Mormon


I looked and beheld the…city of Nazareth; and in the city of Nazareth I beheld a virgin, and she was exceedingly fair and white. And (the) angel…said unto me: Behold the virgin whom thou seest is the mother of the Son of God, after the manner of the flesh.

And…I beheld that she was carried away in the Spirit; and after she had been carried away in the Spirit for the space of a time…I…beheld the virgin again, bearing a child in her arms. And the angel said unto me: Behold the Lamb of God, yea even the Son of the Eternal Father! (Nephi, about 600 B.C., 1 Nephi 11:13-21)

And the…angel…said unto me…Behold, the time cometh, and is not far distant, that with power, the Lord Omnipotent who reigneth, who was, and is from all eternity to all eternity, shall come down from heaven among the children of men, and shall dwell in the tabernacle of clay, and shall go forth amongst men, working mighty miracles…

And he shall be called Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Father of heaven and earth, the Creator of all things from the beginning; and his mother shall be called Mary.

And lo, he cometh unto his own, that salvation might come unto the children of men even through faith on his name. (King Benjamin, about 124 B.C., Mosiah 3:3-9)

For behold, the time is not far distant that the Redeemer liveth and cometh among his people…And behold, he shall be born of Mary, at Jerusalem which is the land of our forefathers, she being a virgin, a precious and chosen vessel, who shall be overshadowed and conceive by the power of the Holy Ghost, and bring forth a son, yea, even the Son of God. (Alma, about 83 B.C., Alma 7:7, 10)

And behold, this will I give unto you for a sign at the time of his coming; for behold, there shall be great lights in heaven, insomuch that in the night before he cometh there shall be no darkness insomuch that it shall appear unto man as if it was day.

Therefore, there shall be one day and a night and a day, as if it were one day and there were no night; and…ye shall know of the rising of the sun and also of its setting; therefore they shall know of a surety that there shall be two days and a night; nevertheless the night shall not be darkened; and it shall be the night before he is born.

And behold, there shall a new star arise, such as one as ye never have beheld… (Samuel the Lamanite, about 6 B.C., Helaman 14:3-5)

And it came to pass that in the commencement of the ninety and second year, behold, the prophecies of the prophets began to be fulfilled more fully; for there began to be greater signs and greater miracles wrought among the people.

And they began to rejoice over their brethren, saying: Behold the time is past, and the words of Samuel are not fulfilled; therefore, your joy and your faith concerning this thing hath been in vain.

And it came to pass that they did make a great uproar throughout the land; and the people who believed began to be very sorrowful, lest by any means those things which had been spoken might not come to pass.

But behold, they did watch steadfastly for that day and that night and that day which should be as one day as if there were no night, that they might know that their faith had not been in vain.

Now it came to pass that there was a day set apart by the unbelievers, that all those who believed in those traditions should be put to death except the sign should come to pass, which had been given by Samuel the prophet.

Now it came to pass that he went out and bowed himself down upon the earth, and cried mightily to his God in behalf of his people, yea, those who were about to be destroyed because of their faith in the tradition of their fathers.

And it came to pass that he cried mightily unto the Lord, all the day; and behold, the voice of the Lord came unto him, saying: Lift up your head and be of good cheer; for behold, the time is at hand, and on this night shall the sign be given, and on the morrow come I into the world, to show unto the world that I will fulfill all that which I have caused to be spoken by the mouth of my holy prophets.

Behold, I come unto my own, to fulfill all things which I have made known unto the children of men from the foundation of the world, and to do the will both of the Father and of the Son – of the Father because of me, and of the Son because of my flesh. And behold, the time is at hand, and this night shall the sign be given.

And it came to pass that the words which came unto Nephi were fulfilled, according as they had been spoken; for behold at the going down of the sun there was no darkness; and the people began to be astonished because there was no darkness when the night came.

And there were many, who had not believed the words of the prophets, who fell to the earth and became as if they were dead, for they knew that the great plan of destruction which they had laid for those who believed in the words of the prophets had been frustrated; for the signal which had been given was already at hand.

And they began to know that the Son of God must shortly appear; yea, in fine, all the people upon the face of the whole earth from the west to the east, both in the land north and in the land south, were so exceedingly astonished that they fell to the earth.

For they knew that the prophets had testified of these things for many years, and that the sign which had been given was already at hand; and they began to fear because of their iniquity and their unbelief.

And it came to pass that there was no darkness in all that night, but it was as light as though it was midday. And is came to pass that the sun did rise in the morning again, according to its proper order; and they knew that it was the day that the Lord should be born, because of the sign which had been given.

And it had come to pass, yea, all things, every whit, according to the words of the prophets.

And it came to pass also that a new star did appear, according to the word. (Nephi, at the time of Christ’s birth, 3 Nephi 1:4-21)


Someone Missing at the Manger
By Elizabeth Starr Hill


It was two days before Christmas, and Marcie was troubled. She sat on the floor in the glowing fan of warmth from the fire, a dozen books stacked by her, and flipped through one until she came to a manger scene. In the picture, shepherds had come to visit the Baby Jesus. The Kings were off in the distance, but plainly on the way. Even a cow and a donkey stood nearby in the stable.

It was just as she had thought. Marcie shut the book with a snap and picked up another. The manger scene in this one was a bit different. The Kings were kneeling in front of the crib. A boy goat herder stood behind them. A couple of cherubs hovered over the shepherds. But, except for some animals, there was no one else.

Marcie looked through every Christmas book she owned. She found tall and short shepherds, fat and thin Kings, black sheep and white lambs. She found boys with crutches and crooks, and even one dressed like a choirboy.

But, in each story, someone was missing from the manger. There was no little girl. Not one.

Marcie went into the kitchen where her mother was feeding Kevin, her baby brother. “Mom, when the Baby Jesus was born, how come no little girl went to the stable to see him?”

Her mother spooned some mashed potato carefully into Kevin’s mouth, and smiled up at Marcie. “Are you sure no one did?”

“Have you ever seen a picture of a little girl at the manger?” Marcie demanded.

“Why, I guess not,” her mother answered. “Unless you count angels. Some of them look as though they might be little girls.”

Marcie shook her head emphatically. “You can’t count angels. They’re too-too angelic. I mean plain ordinary girls like me.”

“I never though of it before,” her mother admitted, “but you are right. It is odd.”

Marcie’s older brother, Tod, came bursting in, bringing a rush of cold air with him. “I’m starving,” he announced, seizing an apple from a bowl on the kitchen table and crunching into it.

“I’ll start lunch. Marcie, will you finish feeding Kevin? And this afternoon,” her mother said, “you and I must finish up the pageant costumes.”

Marcie beamed, thrilled by the reminder of how soon the pageant was. She had been looking forward to it for days and days – in fact, for a year, because she had been sick with a bad cold last Christmas, so she and her mother had stayed home from church.

The pageant was going to be tomorrow, Christmas Eve. This year, Marcie’s mother had been chosen to play the Mother of Jesus. Her father was one of the Kings and Tod was a shepherd boy. Marcie’s name would be on the program, too, for helping with the costumes.

She could hardly wait to see how everybody looked. Probably the most beautiful costume of all was the Herald angel’s. It was white and so heavenly. Marcie had helped make it.

She wondered if she would ever get to be the Herald angel. This year, the part had gone to Dorothy Cooper. Dorothy was a senior. She had an irritating manner and crooked teeth, but she could play the trumpet, so she was ideal for the part. Her trumpet could lead the carol singing.

Marcie sighed. About the only thing I’d be ideal for she thought, is a plain, ordinary little girl. But, of course, there was no role like that.

As though reading her mind, her mother said, “Tod, Marcie and I were wondering why no little girls are ever shown at the manger in Christmas scenes. Why do you suppose that is?”

“Because it’s a man’s world, that’s why,” Tod said cheerfully. He tramped away, whistling.

Furious, Marcie wanted to yell after him, “It is not! It’s a girl’s world.” But underneath she had her doubts. Sometimes it seemed to her that boys had the best of everything – and not just at Christmas, either. Tod could run faster than she could, skate better, climb trees higher. He was allowed to stay out after dark and to play rough games. When he tore his clothes or got them dirty people said approvingly that he was a “real boy,” but when she acted wild, she was scolded for being “unladylike.”

Kevin couldn’t do much, of course, but he certainly got away with a lot. No one minded that he had terrible table manners. And everybody waited on him. And people thought he was so cute – adorable, they said – for no better reason than that he had red hair, only two teeth, and dimples.

In her heart, Marcie feared that she herself was not cute at all. She could see herself right now reflected in the pane of the kitchen window: Just a usual kind of little girl, with long brown pigtails and a freckled nose. She was in-between – nobody special.

She pushed the last of the potato into Kevin’s reluctant mouth, washed his plate and spoon, and went back to sit by the fire. She curled up on the rug, one arm under her head, and gazed into the warm orange and yellow flames.

She imagined it was nearly two thousand years ago, and that she lived in a little town called Bethlehem, near Judea. She was the daughter of a shepherd, and one night she went out with her father to help tend the sheep.

As they watched in the dark fields, a mysterious light appeared in the sky, and grew brighter, and brighter still. Then they saw it was an angel; a real, actual angel, coming to speak to them. They were terrified. They thought it might be the end of the world. But the angel said, “Don’t be afraid. I’ve come to tell you a Savior has been born. He is Christ, the Lord. You’ll find Him wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.”

Then the angel pointed the way to where the Christ Child was, and a brilliant Star shone in the East to guide anyone who wanted to visit him. Marcie cried out to her shepherd father, “Oh, please, I want to see the Baby!” Look, everybody’s going!”

It was true; following the glorious light the other shepherds took up their crooks and walked toward the Star, their faces full of wonder.

“Well, I don’t know,” her father said doubtfully. “It is His birthday and I’d like to take a present to the Child. I suppose I could take a baby lamb for Him to play with. But you, Marcie, what could you take?”

“I could make cookies,” Marcie suggested. “They’re always good to have when you’ve got company coming.”

So she and her father hurried home. Marcie baked cookies and wrapped them in gold paper. Then they set out to join the other shepherds, and follow the Star.

As they walked across the silvery, light-stuck fields, a sense of miracle was upon them all. The sound of the wind was like a rush of angels, the very trees seemed to whisper with the voices and the promises of angels.

Soon the Star led them to a stable. Marcie was about to step inside when –

“Marcie! Set the table!” her mother called from the kitchen. She jumped at the sound of her name and the daydream faded away.

Late that afternoon, the whole family went to the pageant’s last rehearsal. Marcie carried Kevin, and promised to mind him and to take him home if he fussed. She waited with the baby in the church while the rest of the family went off to change into their costumes.

She looked around the church, her brown eyes wide. It was covered with red and green poinsettias. Pine branches with red ribbons decorated the choir stalls, and everything smelled like pine, like candles – like Christmas. For some reason she could not understand, Marcie’s throat closed up, and she felt like crying.

Kevin complained, squirming in her lap. She just hummed “Jingle Bells” to soothe him and he quieted down a little.

Across the aisle, not far from where Marcie was sitting, a Nativity scene had been set up. Marcie looked at the small wooden figures with a familiar annoyance. No little girl anywhere. There was plenty of room for one more. And cookies might have come in very handy.

Kevin began to whimper again. Marcie wished everybody would hurry up and get their costumes on. The baby was getting fussier by the moment. “Hey, cheer up,” she urged him. But he whimpered all the more and finally he began to cry.

She realized she would have to take him home. Once he got in a bad mood, he didn’t come out of it too easily. She told herself: Oh, well, there’s always tomorrow. Anyway, it might be better to see the pageant all at once, when it was perfect. The baby was staying with a neighbor tomorrow.

She skipped home, jogging Kevin and singing lustily, “Dashing through the snow…in a one-horse open sleigh…” Overhead, the first starts of evening blazed down.

Next morning, Marcie woke up early, bursting with anticipation. It was Christmas Eve. She ran to the window. The day was brilliantly clear, and all the town seemed decorated for Christmas: the giant fir tree out front glittered with its burden of snow; glowing icicles hung from every roof and sill of every house; whitened streets reflected the sun with a magical brightness.

The hours of the day seemed to fly by. There were last-minute presents to wrap, popcorn balls to make, celery and onions to be chopped for stuffing the turkey.

In the afternoon, Marcie and her mother wrapped one of Marcie’s favorite dolls in swaddling clothes. The doll was to be the Baby Jesus in the pageant. Marcie felt very proud that her beloved doll was to be used. She washed the doll’s face carefully after it was dressed, to be sure it looked its best.

Everyone’s eyes were bright with excitement, but Marcie’s most of all. She raced upstairs and changed into her red velvet dress, and tied red ribbons on her pigtails. Then she went to Kevin’s crib to dress him in his snowsuit, but suddenly noticed he looked strange. He had some bumpy spots on his face, and he was unusually hot to the touch.

Alarmed, Marcie called her parents. Her mother took one look at he baby and groaned, “Chicken pox!”

“I’m afraid so,” Marcie’s father agreed after a moment. Marcie remembered when she and Tod had had chicken pox. Yes, they had looked just the way Kevin did now.

Her mother phoned Mrs. Carter, the neighbor who had planned to take care of Kevin. She explained about the chicken pox, and asked if Mrs. Carter’s three small children had had it. The answer was no; Mrs. Carter was awfully sorry, but of course she couldn’t, under the circumstances take Kevin.

Her mother called two more neighbors to baby-sit, but without success.

“We’ve got to get somebody,” Tod said. “We’re late already. And what are they going to do if we don’t show up? What good is a Christmas pageant without the Baby Jesus? And His mother? And one King and one shepherd?

Marcie swallowed hard. It was true that the whole pageant would be ruined without her mother and father and brother. But, she thought, there was one person who would not be missed – who, in fact, was always missing – a plain ordinary little girl with no place at the manger.

Still it was hard to say the words. Marcie’s voice sounded husky as she volunteered. “I’ll stay with Kevin.”

Her mother protested, “No, I know how much you’ve been looking forward to the pageant. There must be something else we can do.”

But they all knew that time had run out.

Marcie held back tears until after her family had hurried off to the pageant. But then she flung herself across her bed and sobbed. She had imagined just how it would be: her mother, so beautiful in a blue robe; her father, every inch a King in scarlet and gold; and Tod, the handsomest of the shepherd. She pictured the angels, her doll as baby Jesus…

And she wouldn’t see any of it. She was going to miss it all…

There was to be a short procession first, around the outside of the church, with everyone singing and Dorothy playing. Marcie heard the music start. She ran to the window. She could not see the church, but she could hear the singing better with the window open: “Silent Night, Holy Night…”

Even from this distance, Dorothy’s trumpet sounded strong and fine. So did the voices: “All is calm, all is bright…”

Through the ache of her disappointment, the words touched Marcie’s heard. It was a calm and bright night. She loved carols and she hummed along, as verse after verse followed.

Then the trumpet took on a summoning note. The tune changed to Marcie’s favorite: “Oh, come all ye faithful…”

“I wanted to,” Marcie whispered to herself. “I couldn’t, that’s all.”

Something seemed to answer: a memory, right at the edge of her mind. At first she couldn’t quite catch hold of it. Then she remembered: it was what the leader of their church had said to their mother last year when they had had to stay home.

All at once she heard his words, as clearly as though he were speaking now, to her: “When you want to see the Christ child and duty keeps you home, wait in peace and faith for he will surely come to you.”

“Sing choirs of angels…sing in exaltation…” the voices chorused. Church bells began to peal. The procession was nearly over. Marcie shut the window. She could still hear the singing, and the triumphant notes of the trumpet. And for today, and for always, the words.

For suddenly she knew, in a crystal moment of understanding, why there were never any little girls at the manger. Girls were needed at home. They could not be spared.

Kevin cried faintly. Marcie hurried to his crib. An in the frosty Christmas air, the bells rang joy to all the little girls in the world.

Trouble at the Inn
By Dina Donahue


For many years now, whenever Christmas pageants are talked about in a certain little town in the Mid-west, someone is sure to mention the name of Wallace Purling. Wally’s performance in one annual production of the nativity play has slipped into the realm of legend. But the old-timers who were in the audience that night never tire of recalling exactly what happened.

Wally was nine that year and in the second grade, though he should have been in the forth. Most people in town knew that he had difficulty in keeping up. He was big and clumsy, slow in movement and mind. Still, Wally was well liked by the other children in his class, all of whom were smaller than he, though the boys had trouble hiding their irritation when Wally would ask to play ball with them, or any game, for that matter, in which winning was important.

Most often they’d find a way to keep him out, but Wally would hang around anyway – not sulking, just hoping. He was always a helpful boy, a willing and smiling one, and the natural protector of the underdog. Sometimes if the older boys chased the younger ones away, it would always be Wally who’d say, “Can’t they stay? They’re no bother.”

Wally fancied the idea of being a shepherd with a flute in the Christmas pageant that year, but the play’s director, Miss Lumbard, assigned him to a more important role. After all, she reasoned, the Innkeeper did not have too many lines and Wally’s size would make his refusal of lodging to Joseph more forceful.

And so it happened that the usual large, partisan audience gathered for the town’s yearly extravaganza of beards, crowns, halos and a whole stage full of squeaky voices. No one on stage or off was more caught up in the magic of the night than Wallace Purling. They said later that he stood in the wings and watched the performance with such fascination that from time to time Miss Lumbard had to mare sure he didn’t wander on stage before his cue.

Then the time came when Joseph appeared, slowly, tenderly guiding Mary to the door of the inn. Joseph knocked hard on the wooden door set into the painted backdrop. Wally the innkeeper was there, waiting.

“What do you want?” Wally said, swinging the door open with a brusque gesture.

“We seek lodging.”

“See it elsewhere.” Wally looked straight ahead but spoke vigorously. “The inn is filled.”

“Sir, we have asked everywhere in vain. We have traveled far and are very weary.”

“There is no room in this inn for you.” Wally looked properly stern.

“Please, good innkeeper, this is my wife, Mary. She is heavy with child and needs a place to rest. Surely you must have some small corner for her. She is so tired.”

Now, for the first time, the Innkeeper relaxed his still stance and looked down at Mary. With that, there was a long pause, long enough to make the audience a bit tense with embarrassment.

“No! Be gone!” the prompter whispered from the wings.

“No!” Wally repeated automatically. “Be gone!”

Joseph sadly placed his arm around Mary and Mary laid her head upon her husband’s shoulder and the two of them started to move away. The Innkeeper did not return inside his inn, however. Wally stood there in the doorway, watching the forlorn couple. This mouth was open, his brow creased with concern, his eyes filling unmistakably with tears.

And suddenly this Christmas pageant became different from all the others.

“Don’t go, Joseph,” Wally called out. “Bring Mary back.” And Wallace Purling’s face grew into a bright smile. “You can have my room.”

Some people in town thought that the pageant had been ruined. Yet there were others – many, many others – who considered it the most Christmas of all Christmas pageants they had ever seen.



The Christmas I Remember Best
By Rheuama A. West


It should have been the worst, the bleakest Christmas of Christmases. It turned out to be the loveliest of all my life. I was nine years old, one of seven children, and we lived in a little farming town in Utah. It had been a tragic year for all of us. But we still had our father, and that made all the difference.

Every year in our town a Christmas Eve Social was held at the church. How well I remember dad buttoning our coats, placing us all on our long, homemade sleigh and pulling us to the church about a mile away. It was snowing. How cold and good it felt on our faces. We held tight to one another, and above the crunch of snow beneath dad’s feet we could hear him softly whistling “Silent Night.”

Mama had died that previous summer. She had been confined to bed for three years, so Dad had assumed all mother and father responsibilities. I remember him standing me on a stool by our big round kitchen table and teaching me to mix bread. But my main task was being Mama's hands and feet until that day in June, her own birthday, when she died.

Two months later came the big fire. Our barns, sheds, haystacks and livestock were destroyed. It was a calamity, but dad stood between us and the disaster. We weren’t even aware of how poor we were. We had no money at all.

I don’t remember much about the Christmas Eve Social. I just remember dad pulling us there and pulling us back. Later, in the front room around our pot-bellied stove, he served us our warm milk and bread. Our Christmas tree, topped by a little worn cardboard angel, had been brought from the nearby hills. Strings of our homegrown popcorn made it the most beautiful tree I had ever seen – or smelled.

After supper, dad made all seven of us sit in a half circle by the tree. I remember I wore a long flannel nightgown. He sat on the floor facing us and told us that he was ready to give us our Christmas gift. We waited, puzzled because we thought Christmas presents were for Christmas morning. Dad looked at our expectant faces. “Long ago,” he said, “on a night like this, some poor shepherds were watching their sheep on a lonely hillside, when all of a sudden…”

His quiet voice went on and on, telling the story of the Christ Child in his own simple words, and I’ll never forget how love and gratitude seemed to fill the room. There was light from the oil lamp and warmth from the stove, but somehow it was more than that. We felt mama’s presence.

We learned that loving someone was far more important than having something. We were filled with peace and happiness and joy. When the story was ended dad had us all kneel for a family prayer. Then he said, “Try to remember, when everything else seems to be lost, the greatest thing of all remains: God’s love for us. That’s what Christmas means. That’s the gift that can never be taken away.”
The next morning we found that dad had whittled little presents for each of us and hung them on the tree, dolls for the girls, whistles for the boys. But he was right; he had given us our real gift the night before.

All this happened long ago, but to this day it all comes back to me whenever I hear “Silent Night” or feel snowflakes on my face, or – best of all – when I get an occasional glimpse of Christ shining in my 90-year-old father’s face.



The Man Who Missed Christmas
By J. Edgar Park


It was Christmas Eve; and, as usual, George Mason was the last to leave the office. He walked over to a massive safe, spun the dials, swung the heavy door open. Making sure the door would not close behind him, he stepped inside.

A square of white cardboard was taped just above the topmost row of strongboxes. On the card a few words were written. George Mason stared at those words, remembering…

Exactly one year ago he had entered this self-same vault. And then, behind his back, slowly, noiselessly, the ponderous door swung shut. He was trapped – entombed in the sudden and terrifying dark.

He hurled himself at the unyielding door, his hoarse cry sounding like an explosion. Through his mind flashed all the storied he had heard of men found suffocated in time vaults. No time clock controlled this mechanism; the safe would remain locked until it was opened from the outside. Tomorrow morning.

Then realization hit him. No one would come tomorrow – tomorrow was Christmas.

Once more he flung himself at the door, shouting wildly, until he sank on his knees exhausted. Silence came, high-pitched, singing silence that seemed deafening. More than thirty-six hours would pass before anyone came – thirty-six hours in a steel box three feet wide, eight feet long, seven feet high. Would the oxygen last? Perspiring and breathing heavily, he felt his way around the floor. Then, in the far right-hand corner, just above that floor, he found a small, circular opening. Quickly he thrust his finger into it and felt, faint but unmistakable, a cool current of air.

The tension release was so sudden that he burst into tears. But at last he sat up. Surely he would not have to stay trapped for the full thirty-six hours. Somebody would miss him. But who? He was unmarried and lived alone. The maid who cleaned his apartment was just a servant; he had always treated her as such. He had been invited to spend Christmas Eve with his brother’s family; but children got on his nerves and expected presents.

A friend had asked him to go to a home for elderly people on Christmas Day and play the piano – George Mason was a good musician. But he had made some excuse or other; he had intended to sit at home, listening to some new recordings he was giving himself.

George Mason dug his nails into the palms of his hands until the pain balance the misery in his mind. Nobody would come and let him out, nobody, nobody, nobody…

Miserably the whole of Christmas Day went by, and the succeeding night.

On the morning after Christmas the head clerk came into the office at the usual time, opened the save, then went on into his private office.

No one saw George Mason stagger out into the corridor, run to the water cooler, and drink great gulps of water. No one paid any attention to him as he left and took a taxi home.

Then he shaved, changed his wrinkled clothes, ate breakfast and returned to his office where his employees greeted him casually.

That day he met several acquaintances and talked to his own brother. Grimly, the truth closed in on George Mason. He had vanished from human society during the great festival of brotherhood; no one had missed him at all.

Reluctantly, George Mason began to think about the true meaning of Christmas. Was it possible that he had been blind all these years with selfishness, indifference, pride? Was not giving, after all, the essence of Christmas because it marked the time God gave His son to the world?

All through the year that followed, with little hesitant deeds of kindness with small, unnoticed acts of unselfishness, George Mason tried to prepare himself…

Now, once more, it was Christmas Eve.

Slowly he backed out of the safe, closed it. He touched its grim steel face lightly, almost affectionately, and left the office.

There he goes now in his black overcoat and hat, the same George Mason as a year ago. Or is it? He walks a few blocks, then flags a taxi, anxious not to be late. His nephews are expecting him to help them trim the tree. Afterwards, he is taking his brother and his sister-in-law to a Christmas play. Why is he so happy? Why does this jostling against others, laden as he is with bundles, exhilarate and delight him?

Perhaps the card has something to do with it, the card he taped inside his office safe last New Year’s Day. On the card is written, in George Mason’s own hand:

“To love people, to be indispensable somewhere, that is the purpose of life. That is the secret of happiness.”


The Most Beautiful Thing


The sides of the path were covered with rugs of white snow. But, in the center, its whiteness was crushed and churned into a foaming brown by the tramp, tramp of hundreds of hurrying feet. It was the day before Christmas.

People rushed up and down the path carrying armloads of bundles. They laughed and called to each other as they pushed their way through the crowds.

Above the path, the long arms of an ancient tree reached upward to the sky. It swayed and moaned as a strong wind grasped its branches, and bent them toward the earth. Down below a haughty laugh sounded, and a lovely fir tree stretched and preened its thick green branches, sending a fine spray of snow shimmering downward to the ground.

“I should think,” said the fir, in a high smug voice, “that you’d try a little harder to stand still. Goodness knows you’re ugly enough with the leaves you’ve already lost. If you move around any more, you’ll soon be quite bare.”

“I know,” answered the old tree. “Everything has put on its most beautiful clothes for the celebration of the birth of Christ. Even from here I can see the decorations shining from each street corner. And yesterday some men came and put the brightest, loveliest lights on every tree along the path – except me, of course.” He sighed softly, and a flake of snow melted in the form of a teardrop and ran down his gnarled trunk.

“Oh, indeed! And did you expect they’d put lights upon you so your ugliness would stand out even more?” smirked the fir.

“I guess you’re right,” replied the old tree in a sad voice. “If there were only somewhere I could hide until after the celebrations are over, but here I stand…the only ugly thing among all this beauty. If they would only come and chop me down,” and he signed sorrowfully.

“Well, I don’t wish you any ill will,” replied the fir, “but you are an eyesore. Perhaps it would be better for us all if they came and chopped you down.” Once again he stretched his lovely thick branches. “You might try to hold onto those three small leaves you still have. At least you wouldn’t be completely bare.”

“Oh, I’ve tried so hard,” cried the old tree. “Each fall I say to myself, ‘this year I won’t give up a single leaf, no matter what the cause’, but someone always comes along who seems to need them more than I,” and he signed once again.

“I told you not to give away so many to that dirty little paper boy,” said the fir. “Why you even lowered your branches a little, so that he could reach them. You can’t say I didn’t warn you then.”

“Yes, you did that,” the old tree replied. “But they made him so happy. I heard him say he would pick some for his invalid mother.”

“Oh they all have good causes,” mocked the fir. “That young girl, for instance, colored leaves for her party, indeed! They were your leaves!”

“She took a lot, didn’t she?” said the old tree, and he seemed to smile.

Just then a cold wind blew down the path and a tiny brown bird fell to the ground at the foot of the old tree and lay there shivering, too cold to lift its wings. The old tree looked down in pity, and then quickly he let go of his last three leaves. The golden leaves fluttered down and settled softly over the shivering little bird, and it lay there quietly under the warmth of them.

“Now you’ve done it!” shrieked the fir. “You’ve given away every single leaf! Christmas morning you’ll make our path the ugliest sight in the whole city!”

The old tree said nothing. Instead, he stretched out his branches to gather what snowflakes he could that they might not fall on the tiny bird.

The young fir turned away in anger, and it was then he noticed a painter sitting quietly a few feet from the path, intent upon his long brushes and his canvas. His clothes were old and tattered, and his face wore a sad expression. He was thinking of his loved ones and the empty, cheerless Christmas morning they would face for he had sold not a single painting in the last few months.

But the little tree didn’t see this. Instead, he turned back to the old tree and said in a haughty voice, “at least keep those bare branches as far away from me as possible. I’m being painted and your hideousness will mar the background.”

“I’ll try,” replied the old tree. And he raised his branches as high as possible.

It was almost dark when the painter picked up his easel and left. And the little fir was tired and cross from all his preening and posing.

Christmas morning he awoke late, and as he proudly shook away the snow from his lovely branches, he was amazed to see a huge crowd of people surrounding the old tree, ah-ing and oh-ing as they stood back and gazed upward. And even those hurrying along the path had to stop for a moment to sign before they went on.

“Whatever could it be?” thought the haughty fir, and he too looked up to see if perhaps the top of the old tree had been broken off during the night.

Just then a paper blew away from the hands of an enraptured newsboy and sailed straight into the young fir. The fir gasped in amazement, for there on the front page was a picture of the painter holding his painting of a great white tree whose leafless branches, laden with snow, stretched upward into the sky. While below lay a tiny brown bird almost covered by three golden leaves. And beneath the picture were the words, “The Most Beautiful Thing Is That Which Hath Given All.”

The young fir quietly bowed its head beneath the great beauty of the humble old tree.

Pattern of Love
By Jack Smith


I didn’t question Timmy, age nine, or his seven-year old brother Billy about the brown wrapping paper they passed back and forth between them as we visited each store.

Every year at Christmas time, our Service Club takes the children from poor families in our town on a personally conducted shopping tour. I was assigned Timmy and Billy, whose father was out of work. After giving them the allotted $4 each, we began our trip. At different store I made suggestions, but always their answer was a solemn shake of the head, no. Finally I asked, “Where would you suggest we look?”

“Could we go to a shoe store, Sir?” answered Timmy. “We’d like a pair of shoes for our Daddy so he can go to work.”

In the shoe store the clerk asked what the boys wanted. Out came the brown paper. “We want of pair of work shoes to fit this foot,” they said.

Billy explained that it was a pattern of their Daddy’s foot. They had drawn it while he was asleep in a chair.

The clerk held the paper against a measuring stick, then walked away. Soon he came with an open box. “Will these do?” he asked.

Timmy and Billy handled the shoes with great eagerness. “How much do they cost?” said Billy.

Then Timmy saw the price on the box. “They’re $16.95,” he said in dismay. “We only have $8.”

I looked at the clerk and he cleared his throat. “That’s the regular price,” he said, “but they’re on sale; $3.98, today only.”

Then with shoes happily in hand the boys bought gifts for their mother and two little sisters. Not once did they think of themselves.

The day after Christmas the boy’s father stopped me on the street. The new shoes were on his feet, gratitude was in his eyes. “I just thank Jesus for people who care,” he said.

“And I thank Jesus for your two sons,” I replied. “They taught me more about Christmas in one evening than I learned in a lifetime.”


The Littlest Angel
From the story by Charles Tidwell


Once upon a time – many, many years ago as time is calculated by men, but only Yesterday in the Celestial Calendar of Heaven – there was, in Paradise, a thoroughly unhappy, and dejected cherub who was know throughout Heaven as the Littlest Angel.

He was exactly four years, six months, five days, seven hours and forty-two minutes of age when he presented himself to the Gatekeeper and waited for admittance to the Glorious Kingdom of God.

Standing defiantly, he tired to pretend that he wasn’t at all afraid. But his lower lip trembled, and a tear disgraced him by making a new furrow down his already tear-streaked face.

But that wasn’t all. While the kindly Gatekeeper was entering the name in his great Book, the Littlest Angel, having left home as usual, without a handkerchief, tried to hide the telltale evidence of sniffing. A most unangelic sound, which so startled the good Gatekeeper that he did something he had never done before in all Eternity. He blotted the page!

From that moment on, the Heavenly Peace was never quite the same. The shrill, ear-splitting whistle of the Littlest Angel could be heard at all hours through the golden streets. It startled the Patriarch Prophets and disturbed their meditations. Yes, and on top of that, he sang off-key at the singing practice of the Heavenly Choir, spoiling its ethereal effect.

And, being so small that it seemed to take him just twice as long as anyone else to get to nightly prayers, the Littlest Angel always arrived late, and knocked everyone’s wings askew as he darted into his place.

Although his behavior might have been overlooked, his appearance was even worse. It was first whispered among the Seraphim and Cherubim, and then said aloud among the Angels and Archangels, that he didn't even look like an angel!

And they were all quite correct. He didn’t. His halo was permanently tarnished where he held onto it with one hot little hand when he ran, and he was always running. Even when he stood very still, it never behaved as a halo should. It was always slipping down over his right eye. Or over his left eye. Or else, just for pure meanness, slipping of the back of his head and rolling away down some golden street just so he’d have to chase after it!

Yes, and his wings were neither useful nor ornamental. All Paradise held its breath when the Littlest Angel perched himself like a sparrow on the very edge of a cloud and prepared to take off. He would teeter this way – and that way – but, after much coaxing and a few false starts, he would shut both of his eyes, hold his freckled nose, count up to three hundred and three and then hurl himself slowly into space!

However, owing to the fact that he forgot to move his wings, the Littlest Angel always fell head over halo!

It was also reported that whenever he was nervous, which was most of the time, he bit his wing tips!

Now anyone can easily understand why the Littlest Angel would sooner or later have to be disciplined. And so, on an Eternal Day of an Eternal Month in the Year Eternal, he was directed to present his small self before and Angel of the Peace.

The Littlest Angel combed his hair, dusted his wings and donned an almost clean garment, and then, with a heavy heart, trudged his way to the place of judgment.

He tried to postpone the ordeal by pausing a few moments to read the long list of new arrivals, although all Heaven knew he couldn’t read a word. But at last he slowly approached a doorway on which was mounted a pair of golden scales, signifying that Heavenly Justice was dispensed within. To the Littlest Angel’s great surprise, he heard a merry voice inside – singing!

The Littlest Angel removed his halo and breathed upon it heavily; then polished it upon his garment, which added nothing to his already untidy appearance, and then tip-toed in!

The singer, who was known as the Understanding Angel, looked down at the small culprit, and the Littlest Angel instantly tried to make himself invisible by the ingenious process of pulling his head into the collar of his garment, very much like a snapping turtle.

At that, the singer laughed, a jolly, heartwarming sound, and said “Oh! So you’re the one who’s been making Heaven so unheavenly! Come here, Cherub, and tell me all about it!”

The Littlest Angel ventured a look. First one eye. And then the other eye. Suddenly, almost before he knew it, he was perched on the lap of the Understanding Angel, and was explaining how very difficult it was for a boy who suddenly finds himself transformed into an angel. Yes, and no matter what the Archangels said, he’d only swung once. Well, twice. Oh, all right then, he’d swung three times on the Golden Gates. But that was just for something to do!

That was the whole trouble. There wasn’t anything for a small angel to do. And he was very homesick. Oh, not that Paradise wasn’t beautiful! But the Earth was beautiful, too! Wasn’t it created by God, Himself? Why, there were trees to climb, and brooks to fish, and caves to play a pirate chief, the swimming hold, and sun, and rain, and dark, and dawn, and thick brown dust, so soft and warm beneath your feet!

The Understanding Angel smiled, and in his eyes shown a memory of another small boy from long ago. Then he asked the Littlest Angel what would make him most happy in Paradise. The cherub thought for a moment, and whispered in his ear.

“There’s a box. I left it under my bed back home. If only I could have that?”

The Understanding Angel nodded his head. “You shall have it,” he promised. And a fleet-winged Heavenly Messenger was instantly dispatched to bring the box to Paradise.

And then, in all those timeless days that followed, everyone wondered at the great change in the Littlest Angel, for, among all the cherubs in God’s Kingdom, he was the most happy. His conduct and appearance was all that any angel could wish for. And it could be said, and truly said, that he flew like an angel.

Then it came to pass that Jesus, the Son of God, was to be born of Mary, of Bethlehem, of Judea. And as the Glorious tidings spread through Paradise, all the angels rejoiced and their voices were lifted to herald the Miracle of Miracles, the coming of the Christ Child.

The Angels and Archangels, the Seraphim and Cherubim, the Gatekeeper, the Wing-Maker, yes, and even the Halo-smith put aside their usual tasks to prepare their gifts for the Blessed Infant. All but the Littlest Angel. He sat himself down on the top-most step of Paradise and thought.

What could he give that would be most acceptable to the Son of God? At one time, he dreamed of composing a hymn of adoration. But the Littlest Angel was lacking in musical talent.

Then he grew excited over writing a prayer! A prayer that would live forever in the hearts of men, because it would be the first prayer ever to be heard by the Christ Child. But the Littlest Angel was too small to read or write. “What, oh what, could a small angel give that would please the Holy Infant?”

The time of the Miracle was very close at hand when the Littlest Angel at last decided on his gift. Then, on the Day of Days, he proudly brought it from its hiding place behind a cloud, and humbly placed it before the Throne of God. It was only a small, rough, unsightly box, but inside were all those wonderful things that even a Child of God would treasure!

A small, rough, unsightly box, lying among all those other glorious gifts from all the Angels of Paradise! Gifts of such radiant splendor and beauty that Heaven and all the Universe were lighted by their glory. And when the Littlest Angel saw this, he suddenly wished he might reclaim his shabby gift. It was ugly. It was worthless. If only he could hide it away from the sight of God before it was even noticed!

But it was too late! The Hand of God moved slowly over all that bright array of shining gifts, then paused, then dropped, then came to rest on the lowly gift of the Littlest Angel!

The Littlest Angel trembled as the box was opened, and there, before the Eyes of God and all His Heavenly Host, was what he offered to the Christ Child. And what was his gift to the Blessed Infant? Well, there was a butterfly with golden wings, captured one bright summer day on the hills above Jerusalem, and a sky-blue egg from a bird’s nest in the olive tree that stood to shade his mother’s kitchen door. Yes, and two white stones, found on a muddy river bank, where he and his friends had played like small brown beavers, and, at the bottom of the box, a limp, tooth-marked leather strap, once worn as a collar by his mongrel dog, who had died as he had lived, in absolute love and infinite devotion.

The Littlest Angel wept. Why had he ever thought the box was so wonderful?

Why had he dreamed that such utterly useless things would be loved by the Blessed Infant?

He turned to run and hide, but he stumbled and fell, and with a cry and clatter of halo, rolled in a ball to the very foot of the Heavenly Throne!

There was an ominous silence in the Celestial City, a silence complete and undisturbed save for the sobbing of the Littlest Angel.

Then, suddenly, the Voice of God, live divine music, rose and swelled through Paradise!

And the Voice of God spoke, saying, ”Of all the gifts of all the angels, I find that this small box pleases Me most. Its contents are of the Earth and of men, and My Son is born to be King of both. These are the things My Son, too, will know and love and cherish and then, regretful, will leave behind Him when His task is done. I accept this gift in the Name of the Child, Jesus, born of Mary this night in Bethlehem.”

There was a breathless pause, and then the rough box of the Littlest Angel began to glow with a bright, unearthly light, then the light became a lustrous flame, and the flame became a radiant brilliance that blinded the eyes of all the angels!

None but the Littlest Angel saw it rise from its place before the Throne of God. And he and only he, watched it arch the firmament to stand and shed its clear, white, beckoning light over a stable where a Child was born.

There it shone on that Night of Miracles, and its light was reflected down the centuries deep in the heart of all mankind. Yet, earthly eyes, blinded, too, by its splendor, could never know that the lowly gift of the Littlest Angel was what men would call forever “The shining star of Bethlehem!”


Davey and the First Christmas
By Beth Vardon


Let’s pretend there was a boy, and Davey was his name.
Whose family lived in Bethlehem when Christmastime first came.
Davey had a special pet – a donkey small and gray,
And what the two of them did best was getting in the way!

Davey named the donkey Tim. He never rode him though.
Either Tim was built too high or Davey was too low!
Davey’s father had an inn where people came to stay;
And lots and lots and lots of them were coming there one day.

His father was as busy as six or seven bees!
So Davey said, “I want to help, can’t I do something, please?
Tim would like to help you, too. Find a job for us to do!”

“Listen, son,” his father said, “Last week you broke three jugs.
You scared my two best customers with your pet lightening bugs!
You tracked in mud on my clean floor, you tripped and dropped the bread.
And though I loved the fish you caught – why leave them on my bed?

I’ve put up with your helpfulness as long as I am able.
So do me one big favor now, get out – and clean the stable!”

Davey sadly went and stood beside the stable door.
It hardly seemed that anyone could clean that dirty floor.
He and Tim both felt so bad they started in to cry—
But then (thought Davey), “Yes, we can! Well, anyhow – let’s try.

First, let’s chase those chickens out. That’s what we’ve go to do.
So Tim began to flap his ears while Davey shouted, “Shooooo!”
The chickens clucked and flew and ducked, they fluttered wild and scary,
Until their feathers filled the air like snow in January.

Yes, Davey chased those chickens out, He and Tim together.
But now he had to get a sack and pick up every feather!

You should have seen how hard they worked! They stacked up all the wheat,
They straightened up the harnesses till they were nice and neat.
They fought with spiders bravely till they chased out every bug.
And since we must admit the truth -- they broke another jug!

The very biggest job of all was stacking up the hay.
Davey climbed up to the loft and put it all away.
“Look, Tim. You see how high it is? I’ll make just one more trip.”
Then clear up by the stable roof his feet began to slip!

Down came the hay and Davey, too. They stable looked so queer –
All you could see was piles of hay – one sandal, and one ear!
Slowly they came out on top, and Davey didn’t whine,
Though hay stuck out all over him just like a porcupine!

He put the hay all back again and stacked it up with care –
But left one armload down below to fill the manger there.

So Davey’s work was done at last, and when it all looked neat
He picked some flowers to trim the barn, and some for Tim to eat.
“I hope it’s clean enough,” he thought. “At least I did my best.”
And feeling very, very tired, he curled up for a rest…

Who woke up Davey from his sleep? Just guess them if you can.
Mary was the woman’s name, Joseph was the man.

Mary said, “Oh Joseph, look!” This is a lovely place!”
Then, seeing Davey there, se said, with such a shining face,
“Your father’s inn had no more rooms, tonight we’re staying here.
So tell me now, are you the boy who cleaned the stable, dear?
And did your donkey help you work? We want to thank him, too.”
Though Davey was still half asleep, his heart was glad clear through.

So that is how a little boy, two thousand years ago,
Stayed on to hear the angels sing, and see the Star aglow.

As soon as Baby Jesus came to use the manger bed,
Then Davey’s sack of feathers made a pillow for His head.
No one told Davey anymore that he was in the way.
His work had helped get ready for the world’s first Christmas Day!


A Boy Learns a Lesson
By Thomas S. Monson


In about my tenth year, as Christmas approached, I longed for an electric train. The times were those of economic depression, yet Mother and Dad purchased for me a lovely electric train.

Christmas morning bright and early, I thrilled when I noticed my train. The next few hours were devoted to operating the transformer and watching the engine pull its cars forward – then backward around the track.

Mother said that she had purchases a wind-up train for Widow Hansen’s boy, Mark, who lived down the lane at Gale Street. As I looked at his train, I noted a tanker car, which I much admired. I put up such a fuss that my mother succumbed to my pleadings and gave me tanker car. I put it with my train set and felt pleased.

Mother and I took the remaining cars and the engine down to Mark Hansen. The young boy was a year or two older than I. He had never anticipated such a gift. He was thrilled beyond words. He wound the key in his engine, it not being electric nor expensive like mine, and was overjoyed as the engine and three cars, plus a caboose, went around the track.

I felt a horrible sense of guilt as I returned home. The tanker car no longer appealed to me. Suddenly, I took the tank car in my hand, plus and additional car of my own, and ran all the way down to Gale Street and proudly announced to Mark, “We forgot to bring two card which belong to your train.”

I don’t know when a deed had made me feel any better than that experience as a ten-year old boy.

The Other Wise Man
from the story by Henry Van Dyke


The other wise man’s name was Artaban. He was one of the Magi and he lived in Persia. He was a man of great wealth, great learning and great faith. With his learned companions he had searched the scriptures as to the time that the Savior should be born. They knew that a new star would appear and it was agreed between them that Artaban would watch from Persia and the others would observe the sky from Babylon.

On the night he believed the sign was to be given, Artaban went out on his roof to watch the night sky. “If the star appears, they will wait for me ten days, then we will all set out together for Jerusalem. I have made ready for the journey be selling all of my possessions and have bought three jewels -–a sapphire, a ruby, and a pearl. I intent to present them as my tribute to the King.”

As he watched, an azure spark was born out of the darkness, rounding itself with splendor into a crimson sphere. Artaban bowed his head. “It is the sign”, he said. “The King is coming, and I will go to meet him.”

The swiftest of Artaban’s horses had been waiting saddled and bridled in her stall, pawing the ground impatiently. She shared the eagerness of her master’s purpose.

As Artaban placed himself upon her back, he said, “God bless us both from failing and our souls from death.”

They began their journey. Each day his faithful horse measured off the allotted proportion of the distance, and at nightfall on the tenth day, they approached the outskirts of Babylon. In a little island of desert palm trees, Artaban’s horse scented difficulty and slackened her pace. Then she stood still, quivering in every muscle.

Artaban dismounted. The dim starlight revealed the form of a man lying in the roadway. His skin bore the mark of a deadly fever. The chill of death was in his lean hand. As Artaban turned to go, a sigh came from the sick man’s lips.

Artaban felt sorry that he could not stay to minister to this dying stranger, but this was the hour toward which his entire life had been directed. He could not forfeit the reward of his years of study and faith to do a single deed of human mercy. But then, how could he leave his fellow man alone to die?

“God of truth and mercy”, prayed Artaban, “direct me in the path of wisdom which only thou knowest.” Then he knew that he could not go on. The Magi were physicians as well as astronomers. He took off his robe and began his work of healing. Several hours later the patient regained consciousness. Artaban gave him all that was left of his bread and wine. He left a potion of healing herbs and instructions for his care.

Though Artaban rode with the greatest haste the rest of the way, it was after dawn that he arrived at the designated meeting place. His friends were nowhere to be seen. Finally his eyes caught a piece of parchment arranged to attract his attention. It said, “We have waited till past midnight, and can delay no longer. We go to find the King. Follow us across the desert.”

Artaban sat down in despair and covered his face with his hands. “How can I cross the desert with no food and with a spent horse? I must return to Babylon, sell my sapphire and buy camels and provisions for the journey. I may never overtake my friends. Only the merciful god knows whether or not I shall lose my purpose because I tarried to show mercy.”

Several days later when Artaban arrived at Bethlehem, the streets were deserted. It was rumored that Herod was sending soldiers, presumable to enforce some new tax, and the men of the city had taken their flocks into the hills beyond his reach.

The door of one dwelling was open, and Artaban could hear a mother singing a lullaby to her child. He entered and introduced himself. The woman told him that is was now the third day since the three wise men had appeared in Bethlehem. They had found Joseph and Mary and the young child, and had laid their gifts at His feet. Then they had gone as mysteriously as they had come. Joseph had taken his wife and babe that same night and had secretly fled. It was whispered that they were going far away into Egypt.

As Artaban listened, the baby reached up its dimpled hand and touched his cheek and smiled. His heart warmed at the touch. Then suddenly, outside there arose a wild confusion of sounds. Women were shrieking. Then a desperate cry was heard, “The soldiers of Herod are killing the children.”

Artaban went to the doorway. A ban of soldiers came hurrying down the street. The captain approached the door to thrust Artaban aside but Artaban did not stir. His face was calm as though he were still watching the stars. Finally his out-stretched hand revealed the giant ruby. He said, “I am waiting to give this jewel to the prudent captain who will go on his way and leave this house alone.”

The captain, amazed at the splendor of the gem, took it and said to his men, “March on, there are no children here.”

Then Artaban prayed, “Oh, God, forgive me my sin, I have spent for men that which was meant for God. Shall I every be worthy to see the face of the King?”

But the voice of the woman, weeping of joy in the shadows behind him said softly, “Thou hast saved the life of my little one. May the Lord bless thee and keep thee and give thee peace.”

Artaban, still following the King went on into Egypt seeking everywhere for traces of the little family that had fled before him. For many years we follow Artaban in his search. We see him at the pyramids. We see him in Alexandria taking counsel with a Hebrew rabbi who told him to seek the King not among the rich but among the poor.

He passed through countries where famine lay heavy upon the land, and the poor were crying for bread. He made his dwelling in plague-stricken cities. He visited the oppressed and the afflicted in prisons. He searched the crowded slave-markets. Tough he found no one to worship, he found many to serve. As the years passed he fed the hungry, clothed the naked, healed the sick and comforted the captive.

Thirty-three years had now passed away since Artaban began his search. His hair was white as snow. He knew his life’s end was near, but he was still desperate with hope that he would find the King. He had come for the last time to Jerusalem.

It was the season of the Passover and the city was thronged with strangers. Artaban inquired where they were going. One answered, “We are going to the execution on Golgotha outside the city walls. Two robbers are to be crucified, and with them another called Jesus of Nazareth, a man who had done many wonderful works among the people. He claims to be the Son of God and the priests and elders have said that he must die. Pilate sent him to the cross.

How strangely these familiar words fell upon the tired heart of Artaban. They had led him for a lifetime over land and sea. And now they came to him like a message of despair. The King had been denied and cast out. Perhaps he was already dying. Could he be the same one for whom the star had appeared thirty-three long years ago?

Artaban’s heart beat loudly within him. He thought, “It may be that I shall yet find the King and be able to ransom him from death by giving my treasure to his enemies.”

But as Artaban started toward Calvary, he saw a troop of soldiers coming down the street, dragging a sobbing young woman. As Artaban paused, she broke away from her tormentors and threw herself at his feet, her arms clasped around his knees.

“Have pity on me,” she cried. “And save me. My father was also of the Magi, but he is dead. I am to be sold as a slave to pay his debts.”

Artaban trembled as he again felt the conflict arising in his soul. It was the same that he had experienced in the palm grove of Babylon and in the cottage at Bethlehem. Twice the gift which he had consecrated to the King had been drawn from his hand to the service of humanity. Would he now fail again? One thing was clear, he must rescue this helpless child from evil.

He took the pearl and laid it in the hand of the girl and said “Daughter, this is the ransom. It is the last of my treasures which I had hoped to keep for the King.”

While he spoke, the darkness of the sky thickened and the shuddering tremors of an earthquake ran through the ground. The houses rocked. The soldiers fled in terror. Artaban sank beside a protecting wall. What had he to fear? What had he to hope for? He had given away the last of his tribute to the King. The quest was over and he had failed. What else mattered?

The earthquake quivered beneath him. A heavy tile, shaken from a roof, fell and struck him. He lay breathless and pale. Then there came a still small voice through the twilight. It was like distant music. The rescued girl leaned over him and heard him say, “Not so, my Lord; for when saw I thee hungered and fed thee? Or thirsty and gave thee drink? When saw I thee a stranger and took thee in? Or naked and clothed thee? When saw I thee sick or in prison and came unto thee? Thirty-three years have I looked for thee; but I have never seen thy face, nor ministered unto thee, my King.”

The sweet voice came again, “Verily I say unto thee, that inasmuch as thou had done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, thou hast done it unto me.”

A calm radiance of wonder and joy lighted the face of Artaban as one long, last breath exhaled gently from his lips. His journey was ended. His treasure accepted. The Other Wise Man had found the King.


Is There a Santa Claus?
By Francis P. Church
An editorial from the New York Sun
September 21, 1897



Dear Editor:
I am eight years old.
Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus.
Papa says, “If you see it in The Sun it’s so.”
Please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus?

Virginia O’Hanlan,
115 West 95th Street,
New York City


Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men’s or children’s are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! How dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus! It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no childlike faith, then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

No believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies. You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did no see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Sant