To Be Quite Fair

Tis Customary at Christmas Time — For Each to Hang a Sock —
But Don’t You Think — to Be Quite Fair —
Since Yours is Whole — n’ Mine’s Just Half —
That I Should Hang —– — A Pair?

Appleton Post Crescent (Appleton, Wisconsin) Dec 24, 1928

Old-Time Christmas Tree

The Old-Time Christmas Tree.

I oft recall the Christmas tree
That bloomed when we were boys;
It seems a mystery to me
How it could hold the toys
That clung in clusters on each limb
Like grapes upon a vine,
While many a colored candle’s glim
On baubles bright would shine.

All through the reeking branches’ rifts
The wayward, wandering wax
Would gurgle over gaudy gifts,
And leave long tallow tracks;
Soft pills of purple paraffine
Would punctuate the hair
Of dolls and make their tresses’ sheen
A polka-dot affair.

The limp wax-drippings, light and dark,
Seeped down without surcease,
Bedecking beasts in Noah’s ark
With rainbow stripes of grease;
And lo a miracle was wrought
When falling candle clots
The litheless little leopard caught
And changed the creature’s spots.

The tainted touch of tinted grease,
Made a kaleidoscope
Of many a toy; the lamb’s white fleece
Was flecked like mottled soap;
The dark-bay horse was dappled blue,
The elephant turned green,
And other beasts assumed a hue
That ne’er before was seen.

Now distance lends enchantment to
Those lights of long ago,
And oft we fancy that they won
Our hearts with radiant glow;
The Yuletide tree when we were young
Seems fairer far than all
The boyhood pictures that are hung
On memory’s wide wall.

— T.B. Chrystal in N.Y. World.

New Castle News (New Castle, Pennsylvania) Dec 23, 1912

Sage Counsel – It’s What’s for Christmas

SAGE COUNSEL.

The Christmas season comes apace,
when smiles will hang from every face.
The Christmas spirit for a time,
will make our lives a thing sublime.
Alas, beshrew me, and dodgast!
The Christmas spirit does not last!
A day or two it warms our hearts,
then straightway shrivels and departs;
why does it chase itself so soon,
and leave our lives all out of tune?
It is because we eat too much
of turkey, pudding, pies and such;
the Christmas spirit cannot dwell
where people with dyspepsia yell.
The Christmas morning finds us calm;
the season, like a soothing balm,
has healed the broubles and the cares
that man through weary workdays bears.
We look with kind and loving eyes
upon our smiling fellowguys;
we send some peanuts to the poor,
and think the Spirit will endure.
And then we eat a gorgeous meal,
including turkeys, ducks and veal,
and pies — the kinds that mother made —
and doughnuts, cakes and marmalade.
At night our burdened innards balk,
and through long hours the floor we walk;
and in the morning, cold and gray —
the morning after Christmas day —
we groaning leave the sleepless berth,
and care no hoot, for peace on earth.
And now I spring some good advice,
which followed up, will cut much ice.
Eat humble grub on Christmas Day,
and give the gorgeous things away.

Walt Mason

Ogden Standard Examiner (Ogden, Utah) Dec 22, 1920

The Newark Advocate (Newark, Ohio) Dec 23, 1911

What Christmas Morning Means

CHRISTMAS TIME.

Oh, I am glad to know,
Those Christmas days of long ago,
To see the candle-lighted tree
With all the pomp of mystery,
To stand before it open-eyed
As some new tinseled toy I spied.
To wake before the dawn had come
And find beside my bed a drum,
And then to rouse the house with joy
As now does many a little boy.

Those glorious Christmas days, it seems,
Have vanished in the mist of dreams,
Yet other little boys must know
The self-same charms of long ago;
But there’s no table long drawn out
For all the folks to sit about.
No shouts of glee, no welcoming smile
To those who’d driven miles and miles
To be with us and share the day —
Those good old friends were called away.

The mother smiling at the door,
Her eyes with tears just brimming o’er,
Glad tears that seemed so strange to me,
I wondered oft how they could be.
Because, till I’d grown old, I thought
That Christmas day with joy was fraught,
And didn’t understand or know
That it is touched with grief and woe,
And howsoever large the list,
There always is a loved one missed.

The gifts were simple then, but oh,
With love they set all eyes aglow!
For ivory pen or picture framed
“Just what I wanted!” each exclaimed,
“How did you guess, Aunt Jane, that I
This very thing had longed to buy?”
Love’s altar candles were aflame
As we produced our big surprise
Which brought the tears into her eyes.

But we who were the children then
Are now the women and the men;
The girls are mothers and they cry
As mothers did in days gone by,
And I have learned through changing scenes,
Just what the Christmas morning means;
I feel their kisses on my cheek,
And find it difficult to speak —
I’ve come to understand, and know
Just how they felt so long ago.

By Edgar A. Guest

Ogden Standard Examiner (Ogden, Utah) Dec 22, 1920

Appleton Post Crescent (Appleton, Wisconsin) Dec 22, 1921

Hang it All

HANG IT ALL

Time: Christmas eve.
Place: Any great American home.
Cast: Pa.
Overture: “Hang up the Holly.”

Pa makes entree with his head hanging.
Bag of presents hangs over his shoulder.
Pa hangs bag on tree.
Pa hangs up kids’ stockings.
Pa hangs Ma’s present on tree.
Pa hangs Grandma’s present on tree.
Pa hangs Grandpa’s present on tree.
Pa hangs Auntie’s present on tree.
Pa hangs Sister Susie’s present on  tree.
Pa hangs the Twins’ presents on tree.
Pa hangs the rest of the kids’ presents on tree.
Pa hangs his own present on tree.
Pa hangs Mother-in-law’s present on tree.
Pa hangs himself on chandelier.
Pa hangs there.

Appleton Post Crescent (Appleton, Wisconsin) Dec 24, 1924

Newark Advocate (Newark, Ohio) Dec 21, 1911

Christmas Shopping on the Farm

Image from Zazzle-Farm Christmas

A Verse for Today
By Anne Campbell

CHRISTMAS SHOPPING ON THE FARM

Around the kitchen table, with its checkered oilcloth cover,
A lighted kerosene lamp in the center, shedding cheer,
We sat on winter evenings, and we talked our shopping over;
For it was a December night with Christmas looming near.

The roads were banked with snowdrifts, and the hens had not bee laying.
It was well-nigh impossible to drive the team to town;
So on the printed pages of a catalog went straying
two pairs of twinkling blue eyes and two pairs of happy brown.

The catalog was thick and most profusely illustrated.
There was a section filled with toys and there we loved to look!
But Mother liked to see the furniture, and Father waited
To scan the pictures of the farm machines that spoiled the book.

At least we children thought so, for our minds were filled with scheming,
And nothing useful entered there! We marked the pages where
The toys were pictured, and the games; and then we fell to dreaming
Of Christmas and the happy rush of footsteps on the stair.

The clock struck nine, the book was closed, and sleepy children scattered
To dream of giant catalogs that whisked us far away
To the white home of Santa Claus, where little brown men chattered
Above the toys they fashioned for our happy Christmas Day!

Appleton Post Crescent (Appleton, Wisconsin) Dec 20, 1939

Appleton Post Crescent (Appleton, Wisconsin) Dec 20, 1939

Christmas Wish

CHRISTMAS WISH.

I wish that good old Santa
Would travel like a show
And to his tent of playthings
For nothing let me go.
And take along my stockings
To fill in laughing glee,
With all the things he fondly
Hangs on the Christmas tree.

I’d see the pasteboard camel
Wink at the kangaroo;
I’d see the china wombat
and quagga chase the gnu;
I’d see the rubber ostrich
Serenely wink his eye
To see the monkey capture
The peanut on the fly.

And then I’d see old Santa
With all his books of rhymes;
I’d grab him by the whiskers
And kiss him fifty times,
And on his back go riding
Beneath the fairy dome
And with a lot of playthings
Go running gayly home.

‘Tis then I think old Santa
Should up and go away
And in some other village
Put up his tent next day,
And then go on still farther,
And farther still and still
To let all lovely children
Their great big stockings fill.

‘Twould then be always Christmas,
All musical with joy
And bending tree and turkey
And hobby horse and toy,
For while upon his travels
Old Santa’d scatter cheer;
He’d make a Christmas somewhere
Each day throughout the year.

— Woman’s Home Companion.

The Newark Advocate (Newark, Ohio) Dec 21, 1901

Newark Advocate (Newark, Ohio) Dec 16, 1911

Song of the Christmas Shopper

Image from Chuckman’s Collection

SONG OF THE CHRISTMAS SHOPPER.

I’ve finished my Christmas shopping,
I’ve squandered my last red sou;
My wallet’s flat,
But I don’t mind that,
For thank the Lord, I’m through.
I’ve bought all the things I’ve listed,
And a dozen or more beside;
Twas a shame and a sin,
How I blew in,
My coin this glad Yuletide.
My corn is about to kill me,
And my joints are still and sore;
My back feels lame,
And my weary frame,
Will ached for a week or more.
I’ve finished my Christmas shopping,
I’ve got all I’m going to get,
By I gravely doubt,
Had my roll held out,
If I would have been through yet.

Appleton Post Crescent (Appleton, Wisconsin) Dec 22, 1923

Newark Advocate (Newark, Ohio) Dec 15, 1911

A Difference: Expected, Selected, Dejected

A DIFFERENCE — By Miss Hilda Waddell

Newark Advocate (Newark, Ohio) Dec 21, 1911

Newark Advocate (Newark, Ohio) Dec 14, 1911

Appleton Post Crescent (Appleton, Wisconsin) Dec 14, 1921

Stockings and Pie

Cunning.

Jimmie — But your stockin’s have holes in them.

Johnnie — Sh! I’m goin’ ter put a basket beneath ’em.

— New York Journal.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

Old English Saying.

As many mince pies as you taste at Christmas so many happy months will you have.

The Newark Advocate (Newark, Ohio) Dec 21, 1901

Appleton Post Crescent (Appleton, Wisconsin) Dec 13, 1921