Holidays & Celebrations Books

THE PRACTICAL JOKE. Welcome, merry Christmas and New-Year! prized by children above all other days in the year. Ye are associated with pleasant recollections of old Santa Claus and sugar-plums—with bright visions of a cheerful fireside, merry games, pleasant stories, and happy, smiling faces. First comes Christmas Eve, when each young face beams with eager curiosity and delightful anticipation—all... more...

CHAPTER I THE COMING OF JOAN Along some parts of the coast in South Wales the mountains rise abruptly from the shore, with only a narrow shingle between them and the sea. High above the coast, however, there are warm, sunny little valleys and dells among the hills, where sheep can find pasture and a fold; and here there are many small farmsteads, surrounded by wild rocks and bleak uplands, where the... more...

I do not know where Ballymulligan is, and never knew anybody who did. Once I asked the Mulligan the question, when that chieftain assumed a look of dignity so ferocious, and spoke of "Saxon curiawsitee" in a tone of such evident displeasure, that, as after all it can matter very little to me whereabouts lies the Celtic principality in question, I have never pressed the inquiry any farther. I... more...

ERY cold, very bleak; the thermometer and snow are falling fast; eggs and suet are rising faster; everything at this season is “prized,” and everybody apprizes everybody else of the good they wish them,—“A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!” Even the shivering caroller, for “it is a poor heart that never rejoices,” is yelling forth the “tidings of comfort and joy.” The snow that... more...

A CHRISTMAS GREETING "Good Will Toward Men"—St. Luke 11-14. There was a time when the spirit of Christmas was of the present. There is a period when most of it is of the past. There shall come a day perhaps when all of it will be of the future. The child time, the present; the middle years, the past; old age, the future. Come to my mind Christmas Days of long ago. As a boy again I enter into... more...

LL the Fernald family go back to the old home for Christmas, now, every year. Last Christmas was the third on which Oliver and Edson, Ralph and Guy, Carolyn and Nan, were all at the familiar fireside, as they used to be in the days before they were married. The wives and husbands and children go too—when other family claims can be compromised with—and no one of them, down to Carolyn’s youngest... more...

CHAPTER I A Mustard Seed The cat and kitten were both eating supper and Marian was watching them. Her own supper of bread and milk she had finished, and had taken the remains of it to Tippy and Dippy. Marian did not care very much for bread and milk, but the cat and kitten did, as was plainly shown by the way they hunched themselves down in front of the tin pan into which Marian had poured their... more...

I This is the story the robins tell as they huddle beneath the holly on the Eve of Christmas. They have told it every Christmas Eve since the world started. They commenced telling it long before Christ was born, for their memory goes further back than men's. The Christmas which they celebrate began just outside of Eden, within sight of its gold-locked doors. The robins have only two stories: one... more...

I "Hope is very cheap. There's always plenty of it about." "Fortunately for poor men. Good morning." With this mild retort and civil salutation John Henry Overholt rose and went towards the door, quite forgetting to shake hands with Mr. Burnside, though the latter made a motion to do so. Mr. Burnside always gave his hand in a friendly way, even when he had flatly refused to do what... more...

The largest and the most picturesque country-house of all I know in America, is the mansion house of my friends, the Donaldsons. I would gladly inform the reader of its locality, but this Colonel Donaldson has positively prohibited, for a reason too flattering to my self-love to be resisted. "You know, my dear Madam,"—I give his own words, by which I hope the courteous reader will understand... more...