The New York herald., 1873-12-25
Christmas-Its Human and Tts National
Character.

Christmas, though honored in all the limits
of Christendom as high festival, is also OBJ
served in every different land with peculiarly
national characteristics fact that indicates
its double character As it teaches universal
brotherhood in the name of Him who died for
alias it opens that limitless vista of intel
lectual speculation which leads us altogether
out of our daily life and enables u.s. under the
influence of purer aspirations, to grope little
toward some comprehension of the great ex-
ample-in this light it is the common festival
of humanity, observed with the same thoughts
wherever men with human sorrows weak
nesses and hopes have heard and believe the
beautiful story of that obscure incarnation
before which the three wise ones, or wisdom
in all its attributes, bowed down. And as the
festival of humanity it is an evidence of the
| common recognition of the superior races of
men that humanity is not sufficient for itsef-a
position disputed only once in all the Christian
ages and that by the commingled lunatics
and idiots of the French Revolution-aside
from whom all human creatures of the think
| ing races of men have acknowledged the need
| and the aid of grander moral standard and
| loftier ideal of moral excellence than any
that merely human thought could originate.
Side by side with this recognition of Christ
mas goes, in every country, its other recog-
milton as season of relaxation for the people,
a time Of indulgence in good cheer and
merry making and social delight as national
or even local tastes and fancies prompt and
| inspire. -
| With US, as with others, the day has its
| higher observance but what is our national
notion of its more popular aspect? 1t is
scarcely possible to say for the average Amer
lean just what is the central thought round
which the twittering brood of his Christian fan
cies gather-that is, it is difficult to find point
of such wide coincidence that it may be called
national And this no doubt is because of
our diversity; because our English an
cestors in one direction, our Dutch ances-
| tors in another and our many relatives
of later advent, have so respectively and vari-
ously inspired and softened the spirit that
animates our holiday activities. Christmas
time comes in one circle hearty and boisterous
| with social cheer and Twelfth Night jollities,
if not orgies. In another, one hears only of
| Kriss Kringie, combined from the Pelznichel
and the Krist Kindlsin Of our German rela-
tives with the quaint attributes that German
downrightness in thought has given to either
and associated with him in the same circles
generally we find the dainty fancy of the
Christmas tree. And not far perhaps, from
( this fancy we come upon that thorough
model of pigmy Dutchman our dear old
Santa Claus, operating on suspended stock
| ings at the chimney corners while s'visions of
sugar plums' additionally dance in the little
heads that are nestled near by. In some quar-
ters there seems to be notion that Christmas
tide is about the only time in the year when it
is possible or permissible to rattle for fat
geese-while at the same season by some in
scrutable periodicity of the human intellect,
all the rusty old shot guns in the
country are brought out to shoot at turkeys,
tough perhaps, but guiltless, though tied to
poles at twenty yards distance And with
these incongruous ideas there will go in every
circle much Of the mystic remembrance of
the shepherds and the star, and that far away
Bethlehem
Over whose acres walked those blessed feet
That eighteen hundred years ago were nailed
For our redemption on the bitter cross
Down East we had the ascetic Puritans,
whose extravagant fancy it was to abate all
the social delights and to suppress all demon
strative pleasures as parts OF Vanity Fair and
as sins they were themselves not inclined to;
who moreover hated even the religious observ-
ance of Christmas as a piece of ecclesiastical
mummery. In the presence of these wise
fellows there was as little as possible of the
lofty lesson and not particle of
the popular enjoyment. Enjoyment was
an abomination, and their lofty ideal
was to preach hypocrisy through the nose.
Down South we had our settlers Of the same
ancestry with different principles, and who,
like wanderers generally, carried to further
extreme the characteristic usages of the
country from which they came SO that the
season was, in the South, one of social relaxa-
ton in the superlative degree, and the very
slaves were practically free from Christmas
Eve till the end Of the year. In our own
neighborhood we had the substantial Dutch
men--a humorsome people, without ostenta-
ton, who crammed their round paunches with
the domestic doughhut and piled industriously
their deep cans, relinquishing other considera-
tons of the season to the children, to whom it
was a time of especial Importance, because
| Just before Christmas came the festival of
Santa Claus, their especial patron, who, as
such, was sure to visit them, and might leave
some rewards for good conduct In those
days we had not the Christmas tree which
later German comers brought with them, but
which we have well nigh made our own, since
we far surpass the Germans themselves in the
success with which we cultivate this scrap of
bo,cabo1d fIorx az fbot fho CLr;c{yooa troo