CHRISTMAS TREES.
THE usual announcement that " the Queen has gone to Osborne for Christmas" should have a certain interest for most English children, for there is reason to believe that it was there that the Christmas tree was first acclimatised in this country. Nearly fifty years ago those whom duty or the Queen's commands brought to Osborne in the week before Christmas saw there a new and delightful treat in preparation for the children's Christmas at the Palace,—a tree covered with shining ornaments and hung with presents, and set with candles ready to be lighted on the branches. If, as seems probable, the late Prince Consort was the first to introduce the old German custom among the children of England, it is not the least claim on our gratitude owed to his memory, for the Christmas tree is the best beloved of all children's pleasures,—an ideal entertainment which, unlike most new things, they approved at once, and made the central festival of the year. There is only one kind of tree that does for a real Christmas tree, and that is the spruce fir. Once some lucky children had given them for a Christmas tree a real little holly 5 ft. high, covered with lovely berries, and just the shape of a fir tree. It was very beautiful, bat it was spiky and shiny, and though they tried to think it was all right and a successful novelty, they begged next year not to have a holly, but a real Christmas tree, the top of a spruce fir in which there had once been a sparrow's nest, and on which there were real fir cones. A spruce fir is greenest and most vigorous at Christmas. The children almost worship it from the moment that it is dragged into the room, "feet foremost," so that the branches may bend the right way as it is squeezed through the dining-room door, to the moment when, in the blaze of tapers, it reveals itself as a crown- ing vision of delight. When it has been planted, and stands up scenting the room with resin, and stretching out its stiff green branches evenly around, they fall in love with it at once. Beautiful as it is, they will make it more beautiful still. It is something between a garden and an adopted child, to be beautified and developed for its own sake, and for the pleasure it gives, but none the less delightful be- cause it will win praise from the world at large. Oar English children never forget that it is a tree. So in their parte of patrons, protectors, and earthly providence to their possession they make it fruit and blossom, as the good fairies do in the stories, with fairy flowers and jewelled fruit. No one knows who first invented the fruits and flowers of the Christmas tree, but they are always the same, and so light and fragile that the tiniest child can fasten them to the spiny spruce boughs with a gossamer thread of cotton. There are pears and plums of yellow and orange wax, glorious among the dark fir branches, and oranges and lemons of crinkly glass. There are wax apricots and quinces, exquisitely smooth. Then there are the glass cherries, larger than life, hard and shining, red on one cheek and yellow on the other, and acorns of crimson tin with gold and silver leaves. Walnuts and nutmegs and most lovely grapes all are made to grow on this enchanted tree, and all are so beau- tiful that merely to handle them is a privilege and joy. For the walnuts are sometimes golden and shining, but more often they have real shells, and instead of kernels little red silk bags frill of sweets; and the nutmegs open and have a nut inside them ; and the bunches of grapes, both black and white, are just like real ones, and almost as expensive ; so it needs great discussion and judgment and taste to know what part of the tree they should grow on, and where they will become it most.
There are four kinds of birds, besides the fruits and flowers which always live in Christmas trees. Many little girls think them more lovely than the fruits and flowers
One kind is now very rare and will soon become extinct, and, as always happens, it is the moat beautiful of all. It is the glass peacock, with a shining body and scarlet wings, and a tail of spun glass set up like a fan. It used to sit in the branches next the tapers, where most light shone on it ; but so many were broken in the old days, when they were plentiful, that fewer have come to England every year, and it is only very lucky children who find one in their Christmas tree boxes. But the glass ducks and swans are still pretty com- mon, and so are the water-wagtails and canaries made of plaster, whose heads come off, and whose bodies are filled with comfits, birds a few of which ought to sit on the branches of most Christmas trees. Then on the topmost twig is the biggest solid glass ball fastened, not by a string, but tight as if it grew there, and every spray and bough is tipped with a shining ball of hollow glass, which the tiniest child can fasten there, and last, but perhaps most delightful of all, the tapers, red and yellow and orange and green and blue, are fastened to the boughs. There is great art in rightly placing the tapers on the tree. They must be upright, or the wax will drip, and the flame must burn clear of the boughs above, or the branches will catch light and fizzle. But the spruce branches must have been made for Christmas trees, for each year's fresh shoots grow above the vacant space between the boughs of the preceding year, and the whole tree is thus a ready-made chandelier. Then the presents must be fastened on, not too near the end of the boughs, or they will droop, yet not too near the stein to make it difficult to reach them between the lighted tapers,—all matters needing deep thought and consultation, and almost beyond the capacity of clumsy .grown-up minds. The interval between the completion of the tree and the coining of the guests brings to children no mis- givings, no fears of failure,—only the sense of possession and moments for happy thoughts in the direction of improvements and finishing touches. A bundle of flags is bought and the ensigns fixed upon the boughs, or, choicest afterthought of all, a box of " frost " is bought and artistically scattered on the branches. Meantime, the owners of the tree enjoy to the full the " previous" delights, the glory and satisfaction of giving a party. It is their own party for which they have created the central attraction, and to which none but their own dearest, warmest, and wholly sympathetic friends will come. They know the goodness of the thing, and that their guests will respond as they should. It is part of the etiquette of the Christmas tree that its beauties are never disclosed like that of the stars, one by one. They must be seen suddenly in full blaze,—a whole firmament at once. So the doors are shut and the lovely tapers lighted in the dark room, and then as the children march in, each clasping the hand of his or her dearest friend, there stands before them, not the tree in which the sparrows built, not the uncompromising spruce fir which said " Never " when bidden to obey the law of the wood, but an enchanted tree on which hang the fruits from the garden of the Hesperides, a shining pyramid of wonder and delight. There is nothing earthly, nothing grossly edible, on an English Christmas tree. It enchants solely by its beauty. Its beauty is its personality for the children's minds, though, like all good creatures, it has the spirit of bounty. When the gazing eyes are filled with the first rush of pleasure, and the lovely thing has been walked round, and its beauties absorbed in detail, the lots are drawn for the presents given by the tree. How kindly a Providence rules those lots every child knows. They all get just the thing they want, or what they would have wanted had they been consulted. The tree might have a spirit of divination, or have taken every little boy and girl in the room into its confidence, the day before. They show each other the gifts in groups and confidential coteries, marvelling how these things can be; and then turn round once more to gaze on the shining tree, feast their eyes on the crystal and lights and gold gleaming through the boughs.
things must end,—that is why they cherish imagination to the best of it, and assist at "putting the tree to bed" cheerfully and as a matter of course. Putting the lights can have great fun at it, even if you are only six. No vanquish realities. So when the tapers burn low they make one must hit a taper to make it go out. It must be out is not the least joyous part of a " Christmas tree." Even " blowing out " must be done by rule; and you
They are all quite practical people, and know all good
blown out when you are standing on the ground. It takes two boys or three little girls to blow out a pretty high taper. The crowning joy of all is the extinction of the topmost trio. Chairs may then bo fairly used, and there is a noble trial of lungs. Girls have little chance in this final competition, for they cannot blow like boys; and the boy who blows out the topmost light bounds down from his chair the hero of the evening.
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