Mother's Christmas

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I have a book titled "An Old-Fahsioned Christmas" that my sister gave me for Christmas several years ago. In this book is a short story titled "Mother's Christmas" and it's one of my favorites and I thought I would share it with youall. The author is Elisabeth Robinson Scovil and this story first appeared in Ladies Home Journal in 1890. I thought that was interesting because I didn't know that Ladies Home Journal had been around that long. Anyway, here goes: The very name of December as it appears in sight on our calendars, or gazes at us from the newly turned pages of our almanacs, gives us a thrill of pleasure with its warm suggestion of Christmas greetings and festivities. Each Christmas brings it special delights, more sober and chastened as we learn to find our own joy in the happiness of others to provide it for us. Christmas is indeed the children's feast; hallowed by the remembrance of the holy child born, as on this day, at Bethlehem. To every mother the thought of the virgin mother rejoicing over her firstborn, with no foreboding as yet of the sword which was to pierce her own soul, must come with a peculiar nearness that calls forth an answering glow of sympathy and tenderness. The sword comes to each in turn. Even if the bitter trials of loss and bereavement are spared, the children go, the years steal them away. Let them be made happy while they stay. The tenderest love and the fullest indulgence can do them no harm if generosity and unselfishness are the lessons of their daily life, taught by precept and example. Gifts are the great consideration at Christmas. Thought of and dreamed of for weeks before by the children. Pondered over and worried over for more than the same length of time, by the busy mother of small means. Each of her darlings must have something, and how to bring the parents within the limit of the narrow income, which it is so hard to stretch to cover daily wants, is a puzzle that would bewilder the wisest head. When there is not much money to spare do not fitter it away on a number of little things, but spend each one's share in some substantial gift that can be kept as a remembrance. It need not be intrinsically valuable, but let it be something that the child can keep with reasonable care, as a memento of the happy Christmas at home. A certain China box with figures of a girl and boy feeding chickens on the cover, that once delighted the heart of a little girl at five, is still, after nearly forty years, one of her chief treasures. The sight of the quaint coloring brings remembrances that are almost overpowering in their strength and sweetness. It is a fragment of the past, and precious as the last glimpse of the long vanished fairyland of sheltered childhood. Mothers are making now the memories that are to be the inheritance of their children during all their lives. Let there be a few words of tenderness and blessing to recall when they look back with full hearts on thos happy Christmas mornings. Let the sound of one of the grand old hymns that have expressed the Christmas joy of so many generations mingle with them. Its music will then always bring the echo of the voice that made the very center and core of home. The touch of solemnity will not dampen the children's mirth, only soften and sweeten it, making the day, in the truest sense of the dear words of greeting-A merry Christmas.