CHINA MAIL CHRISTMAS SUPPLEMENT
ONCE IN ROYAL
NCE in royal David's city,' tood a lowly cattle shed. Where a mother laid her Baby In a manger for His bed. Mary was that mother mild, Jesus Christ her little Child.
He came down to earth from
Heaven,
Who is God and Lord of all, And His shelter was a stable. And His cradle was a stall
CHILDREN'S CORNER
CHRISTMAS
CARD
This sketch is the size of a postcard and when coloured could be pasted on to a card and used as a Christmas greeting. colours could be:-
BACKGROUND:-Grey.
Chief
TREE:-Dark green: any bright colours for candles: balls brown; oblong parcel. pink; and round bundle (right) adjoining. yellow.
FATHER
CHRISTMAS:
Red robe. white whiskers and hat: pink face.
BUNDLES: (în front) Cream.
REINDEERS: First one. one (in burnt sienna; second front), sepia; harness, red.
DISTANT HILLS: Purple. BOTTOM of PICTURE: - White with blue shadows except for Redbreast.
DAVID'S CITY
With the pour, and mean, and.
lowly.
Lived on earth our Saviour holy.
And our eyes at last shall see
Him.
Through His own redeeming
love:
For that Child so dear and gentle
Is our Lord in Heaven above. And He leads His children on To the place where He has gone.
THE STORY OF THE CHRISTMAS
TREE
(By HELEN M. TURNER)
THEN we look at the bright- ly burning candles and many coloured ornaments on our Christmas tree, do we, I wonder. ever stop to wonder, when people first began to de- corate trees in order to celebrate the birthday of the child Jesus? If we do, then I think that we shall be surprised to be told that the custom came into be- ing long before the birth of Christ.
The story of the so-called Christmas trees goes back for thousands and thousands of years. In far-off days people in Egypt represented the year as a palm tree and called the differ- ent branches by the names of" the months of the years.
Later the Romans copied the Idea, but they used the tip of a fir tree instead of a palm tree, and this they decorated with candles and with little orna- ments in honour of their god Saturn
In the century before the birth of Jesus, when the armies of the Roman Empire were con- quering Northern Europe, the
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customs and fashions of the south were brought to the peo- ple of the north. In Germany the inhabitants began to use "the decorated tree at the fes- tivals of their principal gods. Afterwards, when they learned to worship the true God," the de- corated tree," like so many an- cient customs, became part of the general rejoicing during the greatest and most joyful of all the Christian festivals.
to
It was not till about one hun- dred and fifty years
ago that Christmas trees were first seen in England. The then Queen, the wife of George III, was a German, and when Christmas- time came she had a fir tree de- " corated, illumined with candles, and set up in the royal nursery. for her little sons and daugh-. ters.
Doubtless the tree was light ed up on Christmas Eve, for it on that day-not on Christ- mas Day itself that all Christ- mas trees are illumined in Ger- many. It is called the Child- ren's Feast, and is also known by the strange title of the Day of Adam and Eve!
HAPPY LYFAR
THREE VARIATIONS
OF
BLIND MAN'S BUFF
>LIND_man's buff is always
BL popular at Christmas
parties. Here are three inter» esting variations.
The first is animal blind man's buff. One player is blindfolded and stands in the middle of a circle with a stick. The other players dance round in a circle tu the blind man taps three times on the floor, when they must stand still. The blind man then points his wand at a player, who takes hold of the other end, and orders him to make a noise like some animal. say, a cat or dog
or lion. He then tries to guess the name of the pinyer from the voice, and if correct the players change places. If wrong, the same player remains blind.
Another reriation is French blind man's buf The blind man stands in the centre: the other players sit on chairs in a circle round him and are num bered, from one onicards. The blindfolded player calls out' tico numbers, whereupon the players who hope these numbers must exchange places, the blind man trying to catch them as they move or to occupy one of their chairs. If he is successful, the player he catches or whose chair he takes becomes the blind man. A third variation is called blind bell. All the players but one are blindfolded and scatter about the room. The one not“ blindfolded carries a bell in one hand, ringing it at every step. and the blindfolded players try to catch him. Whoever catches
the bell man changes piarca. with him.
Jig-saw puzzles are always fun.
Try your hand at doing this one.
A JIG SAW
PUZZLE