Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1886-12-22
Christmas.

Christmas.
s'Merry Christmas to all, and to all /,
good-night" They are the words of th'
tinkling verses which are as familiar and q!
likely TO be enduring as any lines in oul
literature. The man who wrote them il
not counted among our poets, and while
everybody knows the "Visit from st. Mich.
olas, nobody probably can recall any other
poem of the author. 1t was his good for.
tune to put into brisk and melodious form
the universal Christmas feeling. and to
describe Santa Claus as the fancy of child
hood sees him. The good giver of gifts is
the true genius of the season. 1t is Civ
ing which does not invite nor permit the
| refinements of philosophy and speculation
upon their spiritual fitness, but with gen.
erous hand showers them upon old and
young as the rain descends upon the just
and unjust. 1t is the great and aff1uent
giving of food and drink and doles and toys
and all that rejoices the heart of man OF
boy.
Yet it is undeniable that this tradition OF
Santa Claus has become almost as oppres-
sive as tits delightful. Santa Claus him.
self. indeed, has the cap of Fortunatus.
| His baskets and stores are self-replenish-
ing, and when he arrives upon the roof the
very gifts for every age and taste peer out
of his pockets and push themselves into
his hands, and he has only to slide down
| chimney, and there are the capacious stock
| ings eagerly awaiting him and ready to
| stretch to the utmost to receive his gracious
largess. Santa Claus is happy fellow, as
indeed how could the fountain of such
| universal happiness help being? The Pied
Piper is only one of his disguises, and if
| We could once catch that dancing dervish
we should find that the merry music to
which all the children caper is merely the
bewitching tale of the coming gifts at
Christmas.
But the disciples of Santa Claus, his
viceroys and substitutes, are very different
from the saint himself. To sally forth into
Broadway or Fourteenth Street or Twenty
third Street with intent to fit yourself out
as Santa Claus is one of the most be-
wildering of delightful undertakings. A
poor book-lover whom the Easy Chair knew
used to say that the only way to save mon
ey was to go into all the bookstores, aud
in seeing that he could not buy everything
that he wanted, he was reconciled to baying
nothing. So at Christmas the embarrass-
ment of riches moderates expense, and the
gaping stocking is in danger of going unfed
from the very fulness of the possible sup
ply. The fascinated and confused loiterer,
as willing to buy one thing as another, and
unable to buy all, stares and admires, and
universally desires, and buys nothing. In
the happy enchantment of the spectacle ev-
erything seems to him fairer and more at
tractive than anything else, and he returns,
how often! jaded, delighted, dazed, with
his head full of fancies and his heart of emo
tions, but with his hands empty.
The empty-handed, however, are not all.
The full handed, indeed, are themselves
one of the pleasantest Christmas spectacles.
The satisfaction of the disciple who hastens
homeward conscious that he has secured
what every stocking at his chimney most
desires is as serene as that of the parent
bird winging Westward with the plumpest
of worms in his bill That sweet smile is
the forecast of childish happiness. The
beaming parental faces glow with the light
of happy homes. The street seems to be
full of hurrying benediotions - 'sMerry
Christmas to all, and to all good-nightp'
But as we linger along the Christmas
streets and survey the lavish profusion of
costly or tasteful or useful or beautiful or
rfanciful devices to charm the gold and sill
yer from the wayfarer' purse, We may wei
wonder whether Santa Claus himself should
some mishap befall his journey in mid-air,
and some one of his fleet team, Dasher or
Dancer, perhaps, Or Donder or Blitzen,
should cast celestial shoe or trip over a
w-fake, Or the whole team shy as Jack
Frost sparkles by-whether Santa Claus,
if suddenly obliged to renew his freight,
and alighting for that purpose in the holi-
day city, might for q moment be little
lost in the delicious perplexity, and forget
&c in n IaIi
Certainly, as he passes along, his heart
might justly dilate with generous vanity
in the consciousness that of all saints in the
calendar he is most sincerely and univer-
sally worshipped-if, indeed, Saint Valen-
tine, a little later, did not dispute the palm.
If the Imagination of til land "a
boys thoughts are long, long Thoughts
could reveal its Christmas secrets, doubtless
we should see it shaping for his wonder the
strange woods of Santa Claus, in which the
verdure is all of Christmas trees lit with
tiny tapers. and blossoming, beyond apple
trees in June, with rare and beautiful gifts,
while yet from out that blooming realm Of
everlasting green the monarch, muf1ed
from the cold, comes gliding over the hoar-
frost with airy reindeers tinkling in the
chilly moon. To share that midnight ride,
to behold the multitudinous stockings, and
to return TO the realm of eternal Christmas
gifts, is vision not beyond the daring i'm
agination of the boy who, in the joy of the
Christmas morning twilight, as he feels the
forms, before seeing the beauty, of his
gifts, looks beyond the gifts to the region
whence they come, as in touching ivory
and beholding pearls and smelling spices
he is rapt into far Persian and African and
Indian world, sees birds-ef- paradise, and
saunters under palms.
"Christmas comes but once year" was
the old English open sesame to the heart
and hand of charity. To that appeal what
lord Or lady could be deaf? Let it be gold
to-day, your honor, instead of silver or
copper; flowing ale for limpid water; capon
instead of crust; to-day let US own the
equality that we profess; for one honest
hour let US be brethren-fOr Christmas
comes but once year. Tomorrow selfish
ness and meanness, and class and pride and
hard inhumanity; but to-day generosity and
hospitality and kindliness and human SYM
pathy and brotherhood-for Christmas
comes but once year. We cannot, indeed,
return with Santa Claus to his magical
realm of gift-blossoming groves, nor step
into that swift chariot and follow in the
moonlight the soft music of fairy bells.
No, wistful youth, we cannot stay the fleet
angel, but we can compel his blessing. We
can bow to the laying of his hands, and rise
his disciples and vicegerents, and make his
happy benediction real through all the
year-"Merry Christmas to all, and to all
goodnight. ."-GEoRGE WILLIAM CURTIS,
in Harper's Magazine for December.
The True Meaning Of sChristmas.