A CHRISTMAS TREE IN AUGUST

OBJECTS: A Tree Trimmed with Gifts for the Heathen

A Christmas-tree in August! This thought sounds like a misfit among ideas. A Christmas-tree with its atmosphere of frost, snow, and December dropped down in the summer garden of August seems to be like a rose-bush with its roots planted in the air. But the Christmas-tree that I am thinking about is never a misfit in any month or in any place. Any time is the right time for this good tree. Let me now tell you about the Christmas-tree in August.

It is a foreign-mission tree. In order to send our Christmas gifts to foreign-mission stations so they will be received in time for Christmas, they must be sent months ahead of that date, and therefore often they are collected in August. This will give you ample time to send the gifts to any port in the world. August is the best time to gather the children together also. They are free from school duties, and the weather is quite suitable for open-air services.

Select if possible some open space or a lawn on which there is standing a small tree by itself, This tree should not be over five or six feet high. Drop on its branches a few bunches of cotton to give a snow-and-winter effect.

When the people have assembled around this tree, and after a brief prayer has been offered, state that this will be a missionary service, and that the Scripture lesson will be the closing verses of the last chapter of Matthew containing the Commission. This tree we will call our August Christmas-tree, for we will now trim it with our Christmas gifts for the children of the foreign lands.

Some time previous to this date you have asked all the people to bring their Christmas gifts for foreign ports to this meeting, and to wrap them up in white packages securely tied with strong cord. Now ask a few selected children to tie a Christmas card on every package. These cards can be secured at any of the wholesale shops where pictorial post-cards can be obtained. You then with the aid of the older boys and girls trim the tree with these white gifts.

This Christmas-tree under the hot rays of an August sun is not unlike the real Christmastime tree that many of the little folks in some of the far-away lands will in reality have. For in some of these lands flowers and hot sun rays are with them at Christmastime.

This tree bowed down with white gifts will resemble a January tree after a heavy snow-storm. It is a joy tree, for it will send joy to many people.

You conclude the service by reading the Bible Christmas story and telling the children our gifts will remind the heathen that peace and good-will is for them also as the angels said, "to all men." Then offer a concluding prayer that our gifts may all be safely transported across the seas and that the presents may make our little brothers and sisters very happy. Now ask the children to help you untrim the tree, and as they take the presents down ask them to load them on one or more small sleds as if sending them far away. Select a number of the very small children to take hold of the ropes of the sleds and to be prepared to march when the order is given. Place on the children at the ropes the names of the countries to which these gifts are going, and let them draw the sleds over the lawn while the other children cheer them as they go on their journey.

At last let the children and the sleds disappear behind a cluster of trees at the far end of the lawn where a committee of adults awaits them to receive the gifts and attend to the final shipment to the missionary boards of the Church. When the children come back with the empty sleds announce that just before they go home they can play a "bit." Some days before this event roll up into balls some cotton until they look like snowballs. Let the children gather around the Christmas-tree and play snowball games. Try this little game: Hang up upon the tree a common basket with a handle on it. Give each child a certain number of balls, ask them to stand ten feet away from the basket, and in turn see how many of the little folks can cast into the basket all their balls. Each child continues to cast in the balls until he misses, and then the next one will take his turn. All of the little folks who put all their balls in the basket should be given a small prize which may consist of a few nuts, some fruit, or small candies.

Here is another snowball game: Secure a small hoop and ask some large boy to hold it up as high as possible. Then select five girls and five boys each holding five balls apiece. Ask them to stand six feet away from the hoop and to cast as many balls through the hoop as possible. Each child continues to cast the balls until he misses one, then he is out, and the next child tries out his skill. The object of the game is to see which side will cast through the hoop the larger number of balls. The side which does this is the winning side. These games and others like them which may occur to the mind of the committee of arrangements will give the little folks a merry time. Tell the children that this Christmas-tree in August is the king of trees because it is a giving tree; it is therefore blessed by Jesus because he has said, "It is more blessed to give than to receive."