Advent Day 5: Bipper and Wick

A young bear’s youthful rebellion leads to an unlikely friendship on the night before Christmas..

Advent Day 4: A CHRISTMAS STAR

"Come now, my dear little stars," said Mother Moon, "and I will tell you the Christmas story." Every morning for a week before Christmas, Mother Moon used to call all the little stars around her and tell them a story. It was always the same story, but the stars never wearied of it. It was the story of the Christmas star - the Star of Bethlehem. When Mother Moon had finished the story the little stars always said: "And the star is shining still, isn't it, Mother Moon, even if we can't see it?" And Mother Moon would answer: "Yes, my dears, only now it shines for men's hearts instead of their eyes." Then the stars would bid the Mother Moon good-night and put on their little blue nightcaps and go to bed in the sky chamber; for the stars' bedtime is when people down on the earth are beginning to waken and see that it is morning. But that particular morning when the little stars said good-night and went quietly away, one golden star still lingered beside Mother Moon. "What is the matter, my little star?" asked the Mother Moon. "Why don't you go with your little sisters?" "Oh, Mother Moon," said the golden star. "I am so sad! I wish I could shine for some one's heart like that star of wonder that you tell us about." "Why, aren't you happy up here in the sky country?" asked Mother Moon. "Yes, I have been very happy," said the star; "but tonight it seems just as if I must find some heart to shine for." "Then if that is so," said Mother Moon, "the time has come, my little star, for you to go through the Wonder Entry." "The Wonder Entry? What is that?" asked the star. But the Mother Moon made no answer. Rising, she took the little star by the hand and led it to a door that it had never seen before. The Mother Moon opened the door, and there was a long dark entry; at the far end was shining a little speck of light. "What is this?" asked the star. "It is the Wonder Entry; and it is through this that you must go to find the heart where you belong," said the Mother Moon. Then the little star was afraid. It longed to go through the entry as it had never longed for anything before; and yet it was afraid and clung to the Mother Moon. But very gently, almost sadly, the Mother Moon drew her hand away. "Go, my child," she said. Then, wondering and trembling, the little star stepped into the Wonder Entry, and the door of the sky house closed behind it. The next thing the star knew it was hanging in a toy shop with a whole row of other stars blue and red and silver. It itself was gold. The shop smelled of evergreen, and was full of Christmas shoppers, men and women and children; but of them all, the star looked at no one but a little boy standing in front of the counter; for as soon as the star saw the child it knew that he was the one to whom it belonged. The little boy was standing beside a sweet-faced woman in a long black veil and he was not looking at anything in particular. The star shook and trembled on the string that held it, because it was afraid lest the child would not see it, or lest, if he did, he would not know it as his star. The lady had a number of toys on the counter before her, and she was saying: "Now I think we have presents for every one: There's the doll for Lou, and the game for Ned, and the music box for May; and then the rocking horse and the sled." Suddenly the little boy caught her by the arm. "Oh, mother," he said. He had seen the star. "Well, what is it, darling?" asked the lady. "Oh, mother, just see that star up there! I wish - oh, I do wish I had it." "Oh, my dear, we have so many things for the Christmas tree," said the mother. "Yes, I know, but I do want the star," said the child. "Very well," said the mother, smiling; "then we will take that, too." So the star was taken down from the place where it hung and wrapped up in a piece of paper, and all the while it thrilled with joy, for now it belonged to the little boy. It was not until the afternoon before Christmas, when the tree was being decorated, that the golden star was unwrapped and taken out from the paper. "Here is something else," said the sweet-faced lady. "We must hang this on the tree. Paul took such a fancy to it that I had to get it for him. He will never be satisfied unless we hang it on too." "Oh, yes," said some one else who was helping to decorate the tree; "we will hang it here on the very top." So the little star hung on the highest branch of the Christmas-tree. That evening all the candles were lighted on the Christmas tree, and there were so many that they fairly dazzled the eyes; and the gold and silver balls, the fairies and the glass fruits, shone and twinkled in the light; and high above them all shone the golden star. At seven o'clock a bell was rung, and then the folding doors of the room where the Christmas tree stood were thrown open, and a crowd of children came trooping in. They laughed and shouted and pointed, and all talked together, and after a while there was music, and presents were taken from the tree and given to the children. How different it all was from the great wide, still sky house! But the star had never been so happy in all its life; for the little boy was there. He stood apart from the other children, looking up at the star, with his hands clasped behind him, and he did not seem to care for the toys and the games. At last it was all over. The lights were put out, the children went home, and the house grew still. Then the ornaments on the tree began to talk among themselves. "So that is all over," said a silver ball. "It was very gay this evening - the gayest Christmas I remember." "Yes," said a glass bunch of grapes; "the best of it is over. Of course people will come to look at us for several days yet, but it won't be like this evening." "And then I suppose we'll be laid away for another year," said a paper fairy. "Really it seems hardly worth while. Such a few days out of the year and then to be shut up in the dark box again. I almost wish I were a paper doll." The bunch of grapes was wrong in saying that people would come to look at the Christmas-tree the next few days, for it stood neglected in the library and nobody came near it. Everybody in the house went about very quietly, with anxious faces; for the little boy was ill. At last, one evening, a woman came into the room with a servant. The woman wore the cap and apron of a nurse. "That is it," she said, pointing to the golden star. The servant climbed up on some steps and took down the star and put it in the nurse's hand, and she carried it out into the hall and upstairs to a room where the little boy lay. The sweet-faced lady was sitting by the bed, and as the nurse came in she held out her hand for the star. "Is this what you wanted, my darling?" she asked, bending over the little boy. The child nodded and held out his hands for the star; and as he clasped it a wonderful, shining smile came over his face. The next morning the little boy's room was very still and dark. The golden piece of paper that had been the star lay on a table beside the bed, its five points very sharp and bright. But it was not the real star, any more than a person's body is the real person. The real star was living and shining now in the little boy's heart, and it had gone out with him into a new and more beautiful sky country than it had ever known before - the sky country where the little child angels live, each one carrying in its heart its own particular star. A Christmas Star - Written By Katherine Pyle 1899 Thanks For Visiting

Advent Day 3: JOE's SEARCH FOR SANTA CLAUS

A story, my child? Well, there's none that I know As good as the story about little Joe. He lived with his mother, just under the eaves... Note Please allow the google reader to load below.... or listen to the Audio Book being read aloud on embedeed you-tube. JOE'S SEARCH FOR SANTA CLAUS By Irving Bacheller May also be read at:The Gutenburg Library Ebook Thanks For Visiting

Advent Day 2: WHY THE CHIMES RANG

There was once in a faraway country where few people have ever traveled, a wonderful church. It stood on a high hill in the midst of a great city; and every Sunday, as well as on sacred days like Christmas, thousands of people climbed the hill to its great archways, looking like lines of ants all moving in the same direction. When you came to the building itself, you found stone columns and dark passages, and a grand entrance leading to the main room of the church. This room was so long that one standing at the doorway could scarcely see to the other end, where the choir stood by the marble altar. In the farthest corner was the organ; and this organ was so loud, that sometimes when it played, the people for miles around would close their shutters and prepare for a great thunderstorm. Altogether, no such church as this was ever seen before, especially when it was lighted up for some festival, and crowded with people, young and old. But the strangest thing about the whole building was the wonderful chime of bells. At one corner of the church was a great gray tower, with ivy growing over it as far up as one could see. I say as far as one could see, because the tower was quite great enough to fit the great church, and it rose so far into the sky that it was only in very fair weather that any one claimed to be able to see the top. Even then one could not be certain that it was in sight. Up, and up, and up climbed the stones and the ivy; and as the men who built the church had been dead for hundreds of years, every one had forgotten how high the tower was supposed to be. Now all the people knew that at the top of the tower was a chime of Christmas bells. They had hung there ever since the church had been built, and were the most beautiful bells in the world. Some thought it was because a great musician had cast them and arranged them in their place; others said it was because of the great height, which reached up where the air was clearest and purest; however that might be no one who had ever heard the chimes denied that they were the sweetest in the world. Some described them as sounding like angels far up in the sky; others as sounding like strange winds singing through the trees. But the fact was that no one had heard them for years and years. There was an old man living not far from the church who said that his mother had spoken of hearing them when she was a little girl, and he was the only one who was sure of as much as that. They were Christmas chimes, you see, and were not meant to be played by men or on common days. It was the custom on Christmas Eve for all the people to bring to the church their offerings to the Christ-Child; and when the greatest and best offering was laid on the altar there used to come sounding through the music of the choir the Christmas chimes far up in the tower. Some said that the wind rang them, and others, that they were so high that the angels could set them swinging. But for many long years they had never been heard. It was said that people had been growing less careful of their gifts for the Christ-Child, and that no offering was brought great enough to deserve the music of the chimes. Every Christmas Eve the rich people still crowded to the altar, each one trying to bring some better gift than any other, without giving anything that he wanted for himself, and the church was crowded with those who thought that perhaps the wonderful bells might be heard again. But although the service was splendid, and the offerings plenty, only the roar of the wind could be heard, far up in the stone tower. Now, a number of miles from the city, in a little country village, where nothing could be seen of the great church but glimpses of the tower when the weather was fine, lived a boy named Pedro, and his little brother. They knew very little about the Christmas chimes, but they had heard of the service in the church on Christmas Eve, and had a secret plan which they had often talked over when by themselves, to go to see the beautiful celebration. "Nobody can guess, Little Brother," Pedro would say; "all the fine things there are to see and hear; and I have even heard it said that the Christ-Child sometimes comes down to bless the service. What if we could see Him?" The day before Christmas was bitterly cold, with a few lonely snowflakes flying in the air, and a hard white crust on the ground. Sure enough Pedro and Little Brother were able to slip quietly away early in the afternoon; and although the walking was hard in the frosty air, before nightfall they had trudged so far, hand in hand, that they saw the lights of the big city just ahead of them. Indeed they were about to enter one of the great gates in the wall that surrounded it, when they saw something dark on the snow near their path, and stepped aside to look at it. It was a poor woman, who had fallen just outside the city, too sick and tired to get in where she might have found shelter. The soft snow made of a drift a sort of pillow for her, and she would soon be so sound asleep, in the wintry air, that no one could ever waken her again. All this Pedro saw in a moment and he knelt down beside her and tried to rouse her, even tugging at her arm a little, as though he would have tried to carry her away. He turned her face toward him, so that he could rub some of the snow on it, and when he had looked at her silently a moment he stood up again, and said: "It's no use, Little Brother. You will have to go on alone." "Alone?" cried Little Brother. "And you not see the Christmas festival?" "No," said Pedro, and he could not keep back a bit of a choking sound in his throat. "See this poor woman. Her face looks like the Madonna in the chapel window, and she will freeze to death if nobody cares for her. Every one has gone to the church now, but when you come back you can bring some one to help her. I will rub her to keep her from freezing, and perhaps get her to eat the bun that is left in my pocket." "But I cannot bear to leave you, and go on alone," said Little Brother. "Both of us need not miss the service," said Pedro. "and it had better be I than you. You can easily find your way to church; and you must see and hear everything twice, Little Brother--once for you and once for me. I am sure the Christ-Child must know how I should love to come with you and worship Him; and oh! if you get a chance, Little Brother, to slip up to the altar without getting in any one's way, take this little silver piece of mine, and lay it down for my offering, when no one is looking. Do not forget where you have left me, and forgive me for not going with you." In this way he hurried Little Brother off to the city and winked hard to keep back the tears, as he heard the crunching footsteps sounding farther and farther away in the twilight. It was pretty hard to lose the music and splendor of the Christmas celebration that he had been planning for so long, and spend the time instead in that lonely place in the snow. The great church was a wonderful place that night. Every one said that it had never looked so bright and beautiful before. When the organ played and the thousands of people sang, the walls shook with the sound, and little Pedro, away outside the city wall, felt the earth tremble around them. At the close of the service came the procession with the offerings to be laid on the altar. Rich men and great men marched proudly up to lay down their gifts to the Christ-Child. Some brought wonderful jewels, some baskets of gold so heavy that they could scarcely carry them down the aisle. A great writer laid down a book that he had been making for years and years. And last of all walked the king of the country, hoping with all the rest to win for himself the chime of the Christmas bells. There went a great murmur through the church as the people saw the king take from his head the royal crown, all set with precious stones, and lay it gleaming on the altar, as his offering to the Holy Child. "Surely," every one said, "we shall hear the bells now, for nothing like this has ever happened before." But still only the cold old wind was heard in the tower and the people shook their heads; and some of them said, as they had before, that they never really believed the story of the chimes, and doubted if they ever rang at all. The procession was over, and the choir began the closing hymn. Suddenly the organist stopped playing; and every one looked at the old minister, who was standing by the altar, holding up his hand for silence. Not a sound could be heard from any one in the church, but as all the people strained their ears to listen, there came softly, but distinctly, swinging through the air, the sound of the chimes in the tower. So far away, and yet so clear the music seemed--so much sweeter were the notes than anything that had been heard before, rising and falling away up there in the sky, that the people in the church sat for a moment as still as though something held each of them by the shoulders. Then they all stood up together and stared straight at the altar, to see what great gift had awakened the long silent bells. But all that the nearest of them saw was the childish figure of Little Brother, who had crept softly down the aisle when no one was looking, and had laid Pedro's little piece of silver on the altar. Why the Chimes Rang written by Raymond MacDonald Alden Thanks For Visiting