_You may tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding._ _No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood._ _FRANK P. CHURCH._ [Illustration: Decoration] CONTENTS PAGE IS THERE A SANTA CLAUS? v An Editorial by the late Frank P. Church in the New York _Sun_. CHRISTMAS GREENS 1 Adapted from _Some Curiosities of Popular Customs_ by William S. Walsh. I SAW THREE SHIPS COME SAILING IN 2 A Kentish Version of an old English Christmas Carol. THE ANGELS AND THE SHEPHERDS 4 The Gospel Story as in the Children’s Series of the Modern Reader’s Bible, edited by R. G. Moulton. WHILE SHEPHERDS WATCHED 6 The famous Christmas hymn written in about 1700 and attributed to Nahum Tate. THE WISE MEN FROM THE EAST 7 The Gospel Story as in the Children’s Series of the Modern Reader’s Bible, edited by R. G. Moulton. STROOIAVOND IN HOLLAND 9 Adapted from _Holland_ by Beatrix Jungman in the Peeps at Many Lands Series, with one paragraph simplified from _Servia and the Servians_ by Chedo Mijatovich. HOW ST. NICHOLAS CAME TO VOLENDAM 12 From the volume on _Holland_ by Beatrix Jungman in the Peeps at Many Lands Series. KEEPING CHRISTMAS IN THE OLD WAY 16 From an entertaining old pamphlet published in 1740 entitled “Round about Our Coal Fire, or Christmas Entertainments,” quoted in _Christmas: Its Origin and Associations_ by W. F. Dawson. AS JOSEPH WAS A-WALKING 20 An Old English Christmas Carol known as The Cherry-tree Carol. In many versions another stanza said to be of later origin is added. THE “JULE-NISSEN” AND BLOWING IN THE YULE 21 From _The Old Town_ by Jacob A. Riis, copyright by The Macmillan Company, 1909. CHRISTMAS EVE IN MERRY ENGLAND 23 From _Marmion_ by Sir Walter Scott. WHEN CHRISTMAS WAS NOT MERRY 25