ILLUSTRATIONS
| [Marie Tells the Story.] [The Babushka.] | [Frontispiece] |
| FACING PAGE | |
| [Hans and Gretel.] [The Christmas-Candle.] | [3] |
| [Hollyberry.] [Toinette and the Elves.] | [33] |
| [Their Christmas Party] | [75] |
| [The Brownie.] [The Christmas Brownie.] | [97] |
| [Prudence.] [Eaglefeather.] [A Puritan Christmas.] | [123] |
| [The Prince.] [Peter and the Prince.] [The Christmas Monks.] | [151] |
| [Allison.] [The Spell of Christmas.] | [181] |
[SUGGESTIONS FOR PRODUCTION]
These little plays were written for the classes and clubs of a small Sunday-school, where the Christmas celebration consisted of a play to introduce Santa Claus and a Christmas-tree. They are equally suitable for children at home or in day schools, and they have been so used.
In most of the plays children greatly enjoy playing the adult parts and do good work in them. But several of the adult rôles call for adult players, because a deeper appreciation of the feeling contained in the story is required than can be given by girls in their teens. Such parts are the Babushka, the Mother in "[The Christ-Candle]," and the Mother in "[Toinette]." Partly for the same reason, a man should be chosen for the Abbot in "[The Christmas Monks]," but also his presence will lend dignity, and much greater orderliness to rehearsals in a play with a large cast.
The last two plays, adapted from stories by well-known writers, "[Minty-Malviny's Santa Claus]" and "[The Hundred]," were not especially intended for children, but as parlor plays for home production. These two throw heavier work upon a single child than any of the other plays, but though they were made with special children in view, it would not be difficult to find, in any group of children, a little girl who could play "Minty" or "Tibbie" as well as those for whom the parts were first made.
The length of the cast in some of the plays need not be daunting, as the principal characters are usually few, the minor ones often having been introduced in answer to the frequent pleading "May I be in the 'show' this year?" Though some of the parts are rather long, none are in the least calculated to strain the actors in any way—children act them with zest and absolute naturalness. Very little children have sometimes done remarkable work in them—the very youngest, a tiny girl of four, cast for "Rosalia" in "[The Christmas Monks]," played also another part at twenty-four hours' notice, when a little cousin inopportunely came down with measles on Christmas Eve. The two children had studied together, and little "Rosalia" knew "Peggy's" part as well as her own.