In the family circle, the rules which regulate the Sabbath in Wales--which are almost as repressive as those of bonnie Scotland, where, by the way, Christmas-day is scarcely observed at all--are relaxed, and the aspect of the home is as bright as can be. The rooms are elaborately decorated with flowers and evergreens, holly and ivy, ferns and rare plants. In Glamorganshire, and other of the southern counties looking on the sea, roses and hawthorn-sprays may be sometimes seen in full bloom out-of-doors at Christmas. The decoration of churches is also elaborate beyond anything I have elsewhere seen. It is a sight to behold, the preparations for and the work of decorating a vast pile of ecclesiastical buildings like Llandaff Cathedral--the huge quantities of evergreens and holly, flowers, cedars, etc., which are day by day accumulated by the ladies who have the business in charge; and the slow, continual growth of forms of grace--arches, crosses, wreaths, festoons; green coverings to font, altar, pulpit, choir-stalls, pillars, reredos, and rood-screen; panels faced with scarlet cloth bearing sacred devices worked in evergreen; the very window-sills glowing with banks of colour--until all the wide spaces in chancel, nave, and transepts, are adorned. IV. Of common prevalence formerly, and still observed in numerous parishes, is the custom called the Plygain, or watching for the dawn. This consists in proceeding to the church at three o'clock on Christmas morning, and uniting in a service which is held by the light of small green candles made for the purpose. Sometimes this ceremony is observed at home, the people in a farm-house holding a jollification on the Christmas eve, and sitting up all night to greet the dawn. If the east wind blew on the Christmas eve the circumstance was deemed propitious in this connection. This wind was called 'gwynt traed y meirw,' (the wind blowing over the feet of the corpses,) because it blew towards the foot of the graves in the churchyards. It was also believed that the dumb animals paid their tribute of respect to this night; the bees would hum loudly in their hives at midnight, and the cattle in the cow-houses would bend their knees as in adoration.[131] A Christmas-eve custom among Welsh colliers is to carry from house to house a board stuck over with lighted candles, or to wheel a handbarrow containing a bed of clay in which the candles are stuck. This is called 'the Star,' sometimes 'the Star of Bethlehem,' and when stopping before a house the men kneel about it and sing a carol. A like custom exists in Belgium, among children. The purpose is to solicit a Rhodd Nadolig, or Christmas gift. FOOTNOTE: [131] 'Cymru Fu,' 403. V.