The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1896, Page 44

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46 The Lutheran Pioneer.

Christmas Customs in the Northland.

The following sketch of Christmas customs
among the Swedes, condensed from Thomas’
*‘Sweden,”’ we find in one of our exchanges:

All Sweden gives itself up to the enjoyment
of Yule tide. First comes Christmas eve;
next, Christmas itself; then, second day

Christmas; then, third day Christmas; andj are lit, and the children first are admitted | in the parish church.

| Presents are not hung upon it, as with us;
but it is decorated with bon-bons, ribbons,
and little bright glass globes. From the end
of every branch and twig rise little wax
tapers; and when they are all lighted you
|may well believe the tree grew in some fairy
bower. ;

When it begins to grow dark, the tapers

baskets, the father draws forth presents,
one by one, and reads the name inscribed
thereon. All the presents are done up in
papers, and many are accompanied by verses.
These ryhmes always are read aloud, and ex-
cite much merriment. Whole hours are passed
in distributing and opening the presents.

At six o’clock on Christmas morn are matins
Out doors it is as dark

on all four days are the Christmas festivities into the drawing-room. Joining hands they|as midnight, but the stars sparkle brightly
celebrated. Then the merry-making slackens | skip about the tree, full of mirth and motion; }as.you drive swiftly along in your cutter.
| while the old folks sit at a distance and quietly

a little, but does not cease.

It bursts forth again in family
parties and dinners on the last
day of the old year and on the
first day of the new; and still
again on the 6th day of January,
a legal holiday—the thirteenth
day Yule. This day and the eve-
ning before are celebrated with
nearly the same brilliancy as
Christmas eve and Christmas day
themselves; and not until Janu-
ary 13—twentieth day Yule—do
good, old-fashioned families in
Sweden consider the celebration
of Christmas as fairly over.

Early in November everybody
is at work buying and preparing
presents, and planning and delib-
erating —all carried on with the
greatest secrecy and in a pro-
foundly mysterious manner, for
no one must Know or even guess
what is in store for him at Christ-
mas.

As December draws on, the
streets and squares of Stockholm |
are thronged with people making
Christmas purchases. The shops
are brilliantly lighted, as they
needs must be, for now it is dark
at three o’clock in the afternoon.
Everything is cheap, very cheap
in the markets for the people.
Knick-knacks of every sort are
exposed for sale—toys, confec-
tionery, cheap cutlery, boxes with
shell covers, warm winter caps,
pocketbooks, bandana handker-

CHRISTMAS.

Every tree by the roadside is loaded down
with a wealth of snow. In every
peasant’s cot along the way the
Christmas tree blazes brightly.
The great church is full of light,
and the bells from the lofty tower
chime a merry peal that vibrates
far and wide through the clear
frosty northern air. The people
wish each other a happy Christ-
mas as they enter the church.
They joyously sing the glorious
Lutheran Christmas hymns and
attentively listen to the glad
Christmas tidings of the Saviour’s
birth.

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Christmas in China.

Miss Chapin, of Tung-cho,
North China, reports a very
pleasant Christmas exercise held
at that station, the object of
which was to show the poor

Ze people who came to church and
Sunday-school the blessedness of giving.
Many of these people are so poor that they
know not where their food is coming from for
the next day, and life is one constant struggle
for something to eat. But instead of asking
the people to come on Christmas day to 7e-
ceive gifts, they were asked to bring some-
thing to give to others. And so they came
and crowded the chapel to the utmost, and
when the time for giving came, men and boys
passed up the aisle and left their parcels on
the platform, while large baskets were passed
on the women’s side to receive their gifts.
These gifts were of all sorts, and some of
them were rather amusing. There were chop-

thiefs, accordions, drums, trumpets, and thejenjoy the brilliant light of the tapers, the| sticks and matches, bean curd and biscuits,

indispensible ginger cakes, appropriate for|woodsy freshness of the tree, and, most of

the season. :

For hundreds of years booths have been
erected in the city’s squares for the sale ot
‘Christmas goods. By the middle of Decem-|
ber the green trees begin to arrive in them. |
These are brought in by every possible ee

-veyance—carts, sleds, cars, and Broamerey

Some of them are fifteen feet high, and the

"market place looks like a dense forest of

spruce.
Perhaps Yule is enjoyed most heartily in

‘the country. There is so much to be done
: ‘that dinner is eaten early on Christmas eve.

Ks soon as it is over the Christmas tree is
Gressed by the older members of the family.

all, the innocent joy of the children.

Soon the chandeliers and Jamps are Jit; and
fruit, confections, nuts, and other ‘*goodies’”
fre passed around. Then the young folks
join hands again, and forming a long line, go
scampering one after another through parlor
They catch the maid-
servants and pull them along in the merry
chain. Grandmother at the piano plays her
liveliest old-time music, and through every
room on the floor, round and round again,
singing and shouting in glee, the children

and library and hall.

skip and run.

little packages of flour and rice, cotton cloth,
thread, and even salted turnips. And Miss
Chapin says that ‘‘where the people were too
poor to bring anything else they were not
ashamed to bring a handful of salt or of corn
meal done up in their handkerchiefs.’ And
so at the end there was a goodly pile of food
and clothing which the pastor and the Bible
readers could distribute to the destitute.
Was not this a good way of making gifts at
Christmas? And do you wonder that Miss
Chapin says that it was very gratifying to see
the joy on the faces of the people, young and

5 -}old, as they left the chapel, showing that they
Then the family gather round a great, table

had begun to realize that ‘‘it is more blessed

in the middle of the room, and; from capacious'! to give than to receive.”’