An Entertainment for the Sunday-School

The Sunday-school, school or club is assembled; the stage is concealed by a curtain, and the Christmas tree, which is near the stage, by another curtain or screen. The tree is decorated in the usual manner, minus the gifts, which are concealed near the stage ready to be delivered when the right time comes. The tree need not be lighted until the closing of any preliminary exercises that have been arranged. After lighting, the tree should be exposed to the view of all. When the children have gazed at it for a few moments, the superintendent or some other suitable person should come forward, as if to distribute the gifts as usual. He should survey the tree attentively and from different standpoints, and finally, with great astonishment, exclaim:

"Why, what in the world does this mean? What strange thing is this? What is the matter with my eyes? [Rubbing his eyes to see better.] I can't see! As true as I live, I cannot see a single Christmas gift upon this tree! Think of it, a Christmas tree with no presents! Am I growing blind? [Rubbing his eyes again.]

"Do you see any? [Turning to any child near.] Well, I thought so! It is too true, children, that although we have a Christmas tree, and a fine one, too, there is not a single gift upon it; no, not even a little one for a little bit of a girl! Now, this is altogether too bad of Santa Claus to forget this Sunday-school—when we've gotten all ready for him, too, lighted the tree and decorated it so beautifully! It isn't a bit like him, either. He never did such a thing before. He can't have forgotten us. The blessed old Saint wouldn't do that! Maybe his reindeer are lame and he is slow in getting here. No! He would have sent Jack Frost on ahead to tell us to wait. Let me think a moment. It can't be that any of you children have been so naughty that he thinks we don't deserve a visit from him, can it? No, no, that cannot be; it is a mistake, somehow. It is very mysterious; I never heard of the like before—no, never——

"Well, what are we going to do about it, anyway? Can't some one speak up and explain this mystery, or at least tell us what to do to celebrate Christmas?"

At this juncture the sound of sleigh-bells is heard at the back or side of the stage, and a loud "Whoa!" and a shrill whistle. There is an instant of bustling, crunching of ice, stamping and pawing of feet, then the door bursts open suddenly, as if by a gust of wind, and a nimble little fellow bounces in, clad all in red and flecked with tufts of cotton on cap and shoulders to look like snow. He wears a high, peaked cap of red with a bobbing tassel on the peak, and carries a long thong whip, which he flourishes in time to the rhyme he chants:

With a flourish he draws back the curtain, announcing "Mrs. Santa Claus!" There, with a mammoth pumpkin standing by her side, is seen a beaming-faced little fat woman. She is dressed in a fur cloak, or fur-lined circular turned wrong side out, an ermine poke bonnet, made of white cotton-wool, with black worsted tails, and an immense muff of the same. She steps forward, and in a dramatic style delivers this address:

Mrs. Santa Claus's Address

The fairy, a little girl dressed in white, with a wand, and wings, if possible, skips out of the pumpkin and sings:

Fairy's Song
(Tune, "Little Buttercup")

The gifts are then distributed by the fairy, who appears to take them from the inside of the pumpkin. Unless the children are too small, and likely to be timid, they should go forward to receive their gifts when their names are called by the fairy, who apparently knows them all by name, but who is prompted by some one reading from a list standing behind the curtain close by her side. Jack Frost whisks about helping the fairy hand out the gifts and assisting the wee ones to get down off the stage with their bundles. During Mrs. Santa's address he might carelessly perch himself upon the pumpkin.

The pumpkin is made with a strong wire frame (can be made at any hardware store), and covered with a deep yellow cambric with an occasional green smutch painted upon it. It is in two hemispheres and is tied together strongly at the bottom and loosely at the top, so that the fairy inside can easily loosen the top string and step out when Mrs. Santa cuts open the pumpkin with a large carving-knife.

In case it is not practicable to have a pumpkin-frame made, substitute for it a gigantic snowball made of cotton-wool, covered with diamond-dust to sparkle like snow-crystals. Two large old-fashioned umbrellas that are dome-shaped will serve very nicely for the frame of a spherical ball, if the tips of the ribs are wired together. It should then be covered inside and outside with white cloth on which the cotton batting can be basted. With such an arrangement it would be necessary to dispense with the fairy, but the little folks might have the surprise of seeing the snowball slowly open at a snap from Jack Frost's whip, disclosing a nest of smaller snowballs. These Jack Frost might toss to the children and, when opened, they might be found to contain candy and nuts.