The children's book of Christmas

by Unknown

PLATES IN COLORS

The Annunciation	Dante Gabriel Rossetti	[Frontispiece]
		PAGE
The Nativity	Botticelli	Facing [4]
Shepherds and Shepherd Boy		[20]
In a Christmas Market on the Neva		[36]
The Yule Sheaf		[52]
Nuremberg Where the Toys are Made		[72]
Roumanian Boys in a Religious Procession		[80]
An English “Adoration”		[96]

ILLUSTRATIONS IN BLACK AND WHITE

The Shepherds Adoring	Ghirlandajo	[8]
The Adoration of the Magi	Bernadino	[12]
The Adoration of the King	Veronese	[16]
Holy Night	C. Müller	[24]
A Christmas Gift on the Way to Christmas Dinner		[28]
The Holy Night	Correggio	[32]
The Bells	Blashfield	[40]
The Triumph of the Innocents	Hunt	[44]
Bethlehem	Hofmann	[48]
The Christmas Tree Market in New York		[56]
Heads of the Christ Child from Raphael’s Paintings		[60]
The Holy Family with the Shepherds	Titian	[64]
Making Glass and Tinsel Ornaments for Christmas Trees		[68]
Doll-making		[76]
Wig-making		[78]
A Christmas Tree at the Immigration Station, New York		[84]
“We joined hands and danced around the tree”		[88]
Dressing Dolls in Germany for American Christmas Trees		[92]
An American Christmas Tree		[100]
The Adoration of the Magi	Memling	[104]
The Adoration of the Shepherds	Bouguereau	[108]

COMPILER’S NOTE

Wherever it has been possible, the material used has been quoted in the exact words of the writer. In some cases omissions have been made of sentences which would be unintelligible because that part of the original book to which they refer is not herein included. In a very few cases where the books quoted were not written for children, the selections have been condensed and the language simplified. It is hoped that injustice has been done to none.

THE CHILDREN’S BOOK OF
CHRISTMAS

Christmas Greens

It is hard for you who have never felt the lack of heat and light to know what the long dark winter must have meant to the men of long ago who first kept the midwinter feast. Many of them really believed that as the days grew shorter and shorter, and the nights long and cold, there was danger that the sun might go out altogether and the whole world die in the darkness. When, late in December, the days began to lengthen, and they saw that the sun was coming back to bring again the flowers and the summer heat, they fancied that a new sun had been born. So then for gladness they kept a feast which naturally in later years was changed into a festival in honor of the birth of Christ, “the sun of righteousness.”