The Brownie's Christmas

I love old Christmas poems! I included a number of different ones throughout the years in my dramatic monologues performed this time of the year. With so many struggling with low or no funds this year, I thought I would share some with you over the next month as we approach Christmas. So many of the poems of the 1800s or early 1900s were meant to encourage during similar difficult times! Here's a lovely poem -- a story poem, author unknown -- titled, "The Brownie's Christmas,"  written during a time when imagination soared and children often talked of elves, brownies and fairies. And isn't that where fancy took off from true stories of St. Nicholas and the tales of Santa Claus began?

"The Brownie who lives in the forest,

Oh, the Christmas bells they ring!

He has done for the farmer's children

Full many a kindly thing:

When their cows were lost in the gloaming

He has driven them safely home;

He has led their bees to the flowers,

To fill up their golden comb;

At her spinning the little sister

had napped til the setting sun --

She awoke, and the kindly Brownie

Had gotten it neatly done;

Oh, the Christmas bells they are ringing!

The mother she was away,

And the Brownie'd played with the baby

And tended it all the day;

The Brownie who lives in the forest,

Oh, the Christmas bells they ring!

He has done for the farmer's children

Full many a kindly thing.

'Tis true that his face they never

For all their watching could see;

Yet who else did the kindly service,

I pray, if it were not he!

But the poor little friendly Brownie,

His life was a weary thing;

For never had he been in holy church

And heard the children sing;

And never had he had a Christmas;

Nor had bent in prayer his knee;

He had lived for a thousand years,

And all weary-worn was he.

Or that was the story the children

Had heard at their mother's side;

And together they talked it over,

One merry Christmas-tide.

The pitiful little sister

With her braids of paly gold,

And the little elder brother,

And the darling five-year-old,

All stood in the western window --

'Twas toward the close of day --

And they talked about the Brownie

While resting from their play.

'The Brownie, he has no Christmas;

While so many gifts had we,

To the floor last night they bended

The boughs of the Christmas-tree.'

Then the little elder brother,

He sapke up in his turn,

With both of his blue eyes beaming,

While his cheeks began to burn:

'Let us do up for the Brownie

A Christmas bundle now,

And leave it in the forest pathway

Where the great oak branches bow.

'We'll mark it, "For the Brownie,"

And "A Merry Christmas Day!"

And sure will he be to find it,

For he goeth home that way!'

Then the tender little sister

With her braids of paly gold,

And the little elder brother,

And the darling five-year-old,

Tied up in a little bundle

Some toys, with a loving care,

And marked it, 'For the Brownie,'

In letters large and fair,

And, 'We wish a Merry Christmas!'

And then, in the dusk, the three

Went to the wood and left it

Under the great oak tree.

While the farmer's fair little children

Slept sweet on that Christmas night,

Two wanderers through the forest

Came in the clear moonlight.

And neither one was the Brownie,

But sorry were both as he;

And their hearts, with each fresh footstep,

Were aching steadily.

A slender man with an organ

Strapped on by a leathern band,

And a girl with a tambourine

A-holding close to his hand.

And the girl with the tambourine,

Big sorrowful eyes she had;

In the cold white wood she shivered,

In her ragged raiment clad.

'And what is there here to do?' she said;

'I'm froze I' the light o' the moon!

Shall we play to these sad old forest trees

Some merry and jigging tune?

'And, father, you know it is Christmas-time,

And had we staid I' the town

And I gone to one o' the Christmas-trees,

A gift might have fallen down!

'You cannot certainly know it would not!

I'd ha' gone right under the tree!

Are you sure that none o' the Christmases

Were meant for you and me?'

'These dry dead leaves,' he answered her, sad,

'Which the forest casteth down,

Are more than you'd get from a Christmas tree

In the merry and thoughtless town.

'Though tonite be the Christ's own birthday night,

And all the world hath grace,

There is not a home in all the world

Which holdeth for us a place.'

Slow plodding adown the forest path,

'And now, what is this?' he said;

And the children't bundle he lifted up,

And, 'For the Brownie,' read.

And, 'We wish a Merry Christmas Day!'

'Now if this be done,' said he,

'Somewhere in the world perhaps there is

A place for you and me!'

And the bundle he opened softly:

'This is children's tender thought:

Their own little Christmas presents

They have to the Brownie brought.

'If there liveth such tender pity

Toward a thing so dim and low,

There is kindness sure remaining

Of which I did not know.

'Oh, children, there's never a Brownie --

That sorry, uncanny thing;

But nearest and next are the homeless

When the Christmas joy-bells ring.'

Out laughed the little daughter,

And she gathered the toys with glee:

'My Christmas present has fallen!

This oak was my Christmas tree!'

Then away they went through the forest,

The wanderers, hand in hand;

And the snow, they were both so merry,

It glinted like the golden sand.

Down the forest the elder brother,

In the morning clear and cold,

Came leading the little sister

And the darling five-year-old.

'Oh,' he cries, 'he's taken the bundle!'

As carefully round he peers;

'And the Brownie has gotten a Christmas

After a thousand years!'"

A Plea for the Old-Time Thanksgiving

I want to share the "Household Topics" column from the November 1896 issue of The Ladies World I have in my collection of vintage ephemera. It was the inspiration for my latest creation in my shop on Etsy. It truly is an appeal for remembering the Old-Time Thanksgiving. As you read it, remember, this was written over 100 years ago as a plea then! How much more do we need it today?
~~~~~~~~~~
"How many of us who keep Thanksgiving day with feasting and merriment consider the real meaning of the holiday? Of course, we go to church and hear elaborate sermons, admonishing us to 'consider our mercies,' and down in our hearts we form a little prayer of gratitude for the benefits we have received, and of supplication for a continuance of our blessings, and in thus making it our own we do right; but still we are losing something each year in the real sweetness of the day.

The English nation has changed much since its first festive observance of Christmas, but staid and matter-of-fact as the people are, they keep many of their olden customs. Still the men and maids bring in the mistletoe; still the Yule log burns on the English hearth; still the waifs sing beneath the windows and the boar's head is brought in in stately procession.

Compare this with our metamorphosis of Thanksgiving Day. Because we no longer live on puncheon floors and wear homespun, because our life is daily growing more complex, is not an excuse for forsaking the old-time Thanksgiving, but, rather, another reason why we should, for this one day, rest our over-strained nerves and go back to the simple, hearty holiday of old.

When I sit in a fashionable congregation on Thanksgiving Day, my mind sometimes wanders from the discourse. It does not dwell on the plumes and furs and velvets in the polished pews, but goes back to that little log hut in the mighty New England woods, and to the brave men who raised their voices in prayer on that first Thanksgiving Day.

And for what did they give thanks? Not that the Lord had blessed them with bountiful harvests, nor prospered their investments, nor kept their foes from them, but because He had sent the ship of relief, just in time to save them from starvation. They acknowledged His benefits in those days in a way to put to shame our indifferent spirit today. It takes more to put this generation in a thankful frame of mind than it did our Puritan fathers. Our granaries and storehouses must be full to overflowing, but they fervently thanked a kind Providence that they could be allowed 'a peck of Indian meal a week to each person."

To put us in a thankful mood, our ship must be bountifully loaded with luxuries for our own; but the first Day of Thanks was for the ship that came into the offing bearing bread for the starving.

If we could all keep this blessed day in sweet and serene spirit, thankful for what we have, much or little, thankful even for the sorrow that the year has brought to soften and chasten our hearts; if we could throw aside unnecessary forms, making it an unconventional, old-time holiday for our families and for the wanderers that come back to us, what sweet memories, all our own, would be connected to the holiday."

There are yet a number of days left between today and Thanksgiving Day to make careful plans for a true celebration of gratitude, even in the midst of these uncertain times. Blessings to you and yours!

BBEST-Boomers and Beyond Etsy Street Team: Gifts For $10 and Under

BBEST-Boomers and Beyond Etsy Street Team: Gifts For $10 and Under