Build a cave-shaped box on a raised platform, drape inside and out with white muslin, fasten evergreen boughs about the entrance and at the back, draping all of these with loose tufts of cotton like new-fallen snow, and sprinkling them with mica. Sprays of red berries can be introduced with splendid effect. White covered steps must lead up to the cave, about the mouth of which may be spread white fur rugs. Let the candles be fastened plentifully around the cave, but have the rest of the room very dimly lighted. In the cave arrange the gifts, wrapped and properly marked, being careful to have one for each person present. Dress a pretty, golden-haired little girl as a fairy, with wings and spangles to enter the cave and bring out the gifts, and a couple of little boys as imps or brownies to deliver them. Low music should be played in some concealed corner, with now and again a song or chorus by a band of children dressed as fairies. The presentation of the tableaux may either precede or follow the distribution of the gifts.

Boy Blue.—A little boy in a blue suit stands on a pile of hay, side to the audience, with a tin trumpet to his lips. Piano music, "Little Boy Blue." If the song is sung softly, it is an addition.

Bo Peep.—A little girl in a white gown, with a shepherd's crook, in pursuit of a woolly lamb on rollers, being drawn across the stage by an invisible string. She stands as if she were running, with one foot out behind her, while the lamb disappears and some one reads the rhyme:

Miss Muffet.—A little girl sits on Boy Blue's pile of hay, eating something from a saucer. A small boy steals up behind her, with an artificial spider on a string attached to a pole, which he slowly lowers into her plate. Appropriate music is played, and Miss Muffet screams as the curtain is drawn.

Cinderella.—A little girl, with torn calico dress and unkempt hair, stands at the right of the stage, her hands clasped and uplifted, smiling in wonder. Before her stands a very small boy in a smart military suit, with a white cotton wig on his head, indicating the coach in which she is to go to the ball. The coach may be a pumpkin hollowed into the proper shape, and drawn by a small dog harnessed to it with ribbons, or a go-cart, or baby carriage, drawn by a larger dog. Some one behind the scenes plays a waltz very softly. Plenty of red fire.

Little Jack Horner.—For this a boy with a mischievous face should be chosen. He sits on the floor in the centre of the stage, with a huge pan covered with white paper between his feet. Some one behind the scenes reads the nursery rhyme:

Little Jack Horner, of course, suits the action to the words, pulling a prune, date or raisin out of a hole in the paper pasted over the pan. He puts it in his mouth as the curtain is drawn.

Following the Flag.—In one corner of the stage a tent is erected—a white sheet over a centre pole. All the small boys who have military suits, drums, trumpets and muskets, stand about, and one in the very front holds the flag. In front of the tent, on a pile of hay, lies another small boy, in a military suit, with his eyes closed, and behind him stands a little girl in a big white apron, with the symbol of the red cross on her left arm. Music behind the scenes is either "Tenting on the Old Camp Ground," or "The Star Spangled Banner," and all the rest of the red fire is ignited. When it dies down, the curtain is drawn, the lights are turned up, and the pianist plays "Home, Sweet Home."