Christmas is a day of days to the little folks, because of the gifts it brings to them. But Christmas gifts have a greater or a lesser value in the eyes of children according to the measure of the giver’s self which is given with them. It is not that children intelligently prize their gifts, as older persons are likely to, in proportion as they read in them the proofs of the giver’s loving labor in their preparation. But it is that to children the Christmas gifts by themselves are of minor value, in comparison with the interest excited in the manner of their giving, through labors that really represent the giver’s self, whether the children perceive this, at the time, or not.

The Christmas stocking and the Christmas tree give added value to the gifts that they cover; and neither tree nor stocking can be made ready for Christmas morning without patient and loving labor, on the part of the parents, during the night before. Moreover, beyond the dazzling attractions of the ornamented tree, and the suggestive outline of the bulging stocking, the more there is to provoke curiosity and to incite endeavor, on the children’s part, in the finding and securing of their Christmas portion, the better the children like it, and the more they value that which is thus made theirs.

It takes time and work and skill to make the most, for the children, of a Christmas morning; but it pays to do this for the darlings, while they still are children. They will never forget it; and it will be a precious memory to them all their life through. It is one of the child-training agencies which a parent ought to be glad to use for good.

One good man might be named who has brought to perfection the art of making Christmas delightful to children. He has no children of his own; so he makes it his mission to give happiness to other people’s children. The story of bright and varied Christmas methods in his home would fill a little volume. His plans for Christmas are never twice alike; hence the children whom he gathers say truly, “There was never anything like this before.” Take a single Christmas for example. This child-lover was busy getting ready for it for weeks in advance. Money he spent freely, but he did not stop with that. Day and evening, with a loving sister’s help, he worked away getting everything just to his mind—which was sure to be just to the children’s mind. At last Christmas eve was here; so were the children—nieces and nephews, and others more remote of kin, gathered in his home to wait for the hoped-for day.

Christmas morning came at last. Waking and sleeping dreams had all been full of coming delights to the children; for they knew enough from the past to be sure that good was in store for them. No one overslept, that morning. According to orders, they gathered in the breakfast-room. Their stockings were hanging from the mantel, but limp and empty. Not one suspicious package or box was to be seen. Breakfast was first out of the way, that the morning might be free for a right good time. Then the day was fairly open. Each went to his or her stocking. There was nothing in it but a little card, pendent from a thread coming over the mantel edge. On that card was a rhyming call to follow the thread wherever it might lead; somewhat after this form:

Every stocking told the same story, in varied form, and every child stood holding a frail thread, wondering to what it would lead, and waiting the signal for a start. At the word, all were off together.

It was a rare old house, richly furnished with treasures of art and fancy from all the world over. The breakfast-room was heavily paneled in carved wood and hung with ancient Gobelin tapestry. The threads which the children followed passed back of the large Swiss clock, along the wall under the tapestry, out by the parlor with its Cordova-leather panels, into a picture-hung reception room, and there mounted to the ceiling above, up through a colored glass sky-light. When the children saw that, they scampered through the marble-tiled hall, up the broad polished walnut staircase to the passage above, and there drew up their threads, and started on a new hunt.

From this fresh point of departure the different threads took separate directions. They led hither and thither, the children following, almost holding their breaths with the excitement of pursuit and expectation. Along the corridor walls, under rows of Saracen tiles and Italian majolica and SÈvres porcelain, back of old paintings, through the well-filled library, into and out of closets stored with fishing-tackle and hunting-gear, through rooms spread with Turkish mats and rich with coverings of Persian embroidery, up into the third story, and down along the under side of the banister rail, back to the lower floor, again the threads led the way and the children followed. It was a happy hour for old and young.

By and by the threads came once more to a common point, passing under a closed door out of a rear hall, where a printed placard called on each child to wait until all were together. One by one they came up with beaming faces and bounding hearts. The door was opened. There in the center of the disclosed room were seven mammoth pasteboard Christmas boots, holding from one to three pecks each, marked with the names of the several children, and filled to overflowing. Each child seized a boot, and hurried, as directed, back to the breakfast-room.

Then came new surprises. All hands sat on the floor together. Only one package at a time was opened, that all might enjoy the disclosures to the full. And there were unlooked-for directions on many a package. One child would take a package from her Christmas boot, and, on removing the first wrapper, would find a written announcement that the package was to be handed over to her cousin. A little later, the cousin would be directed to pass along another package to a third one of the party. And so the morning went by. How happy those children were! What life-long memories of enjoyment were then made for them! And how thoroughly the good uncle and aunt enjoyed that morning with its happiness which they had created!

There were elegant and fitting presents found in those Christmas boots; but the charm of that day was in the mysteries of that pursuing chase all over that beautiful house, and in the excitements of prolonged anticipation and wonder. Those children will never have done enjoying that morning. The choicest gifts then received by them had an added value because their generous giver had put so much of himself into their preparation and distribution. And this is but an illustration of a truth that is applicable in the whole realm of efforts at gladdening the hearts of the little ones on Christmas or any other day. It matters not, so far, whether the home be one of abundance or of close limitations, whether the gifts be many or few, costly of inexpensive.

He who would make children happy must do for them and do with them, rather than merely give to them. He must give himself with his gifts, and thus imitate and illustrate, in a degree, the love of Him who gave himself to us, who is touched with the sense of our enjoyments as well as our needs, and who, with all that He gives us, holds out an expectation of some better thing in store for us: of that which passeth knowledge and understanding, but which shall fully satisfy our hopes and longings when at last we have it in possession.