To understand something of the intensity to which at Christmas the atmosphere can attain, one must be at that time in the Fatherland. A good six weeks beforehand, those who happen to be near the railway line may note the passing of luggage trains bearing nothing but small pine trees--that is to say comparatively small for many are ten or twelve feet high. They are the thinnings of the big pine forests of the Thüringer-Wald, and come down daily to Berlin and the other large towns to supply the wants of the dealers in such trees. Every public square becomes a miniature pine-wood. Even the stringent police regulations are relaxed for the time. In all the broad streets are dealers in trees, sellers of toys, of _Pfeffer Kuchen_, of filigree ornaments, of air-ships, toy flying-machines and other Christmas luxuries. Travellers in the train can see depending by a string from the sill of every window of those huge barrack-like flats which surround Berlin, usually hanging upside down, the _Weihnachts-Baum_, the tree of promise, which has to be kept in as out-of-door conditions as possible, or, being cut off at the root, it would soon become dangerously dry if it were not occasionally damped with the watering-can. It is safe to say that hardly any house in Germany, whether the inhabitants be young or old, rich or poor, is without its tiny tree at Christmas-tide. One sees them in lonely signal-boxes on the railway, in poverty-stricken cottage windows, in workshops, in barracks, in churches and chapels. There is a touching and peculiar sentiment towards Christmas inherent in every German heart, which makes the very scent of a burning pine branch, that aromatic smell which pervades the air at this season, recall the old childish days, the wonder and the glory of _Weihnachts-Glanz_. So that everybody in the Neues Palais, wearing the slightly worried look peculiar to the time, strains every nerve to add his or her quota to the general _Weihnachts-stimmung_--or “Christmasmood.” It is in the big _Muschel-Saal_ that the glory and brightness concentrate. Here in this wonderful hall of shells the row of big Christmas trees is arranged--one for every child of the Emperor, one for His Majesty and the Empress, and another for the ladies-in-waiting, nine trees in all, besides two for the servants’ distribution. In addition to this every one must have a private tree. It would be a terrible thing to find a single sitting-room without its little pine-tree and shining tinsel ornaments.