hilarity
are the leading features of the occasion, and home and family
pleasures are secondary affairs.

Of course the customs vary in different provinces, some of which still
cling to primitive forms of observance while others are fast adopting
those of foreign residents and becoming Continental in style. But
everywhere throughout the land Christmas is the day of days,--the
great church festival observed by all.

The _Noche-buena_ or Good Night, preceding Christmas, finds the shops
gay with sweets and fancy goods suitable for holiday wear, but not
with the pretty gifts such as circulate from home to home in northern
countries, for here gifts are not generally exchanged.

Doctors, ministers, and landlords receive their yearly gifts of
turkeys, cakes, and produce from their dependents, but the love of
presenting dainty Christmas gifts has not reached the land of the
three C's--the Cid, Cervantes, and Columbus.

[Illustration: CHRISTMAS FESTIVITY IN SEVILLE.]

Do you know what you would probably do if you were a dark-cheeked
Spanish lad named Miguel, or a bright-eyed, light-hearted Spanish
maiden named Dolores?

If you were Miguel you would don your black jacket and brown trousers,
knot your gayest kerchief around your neck, and with your guitar in
hand you would hasten forth to enjoy the fun that prevails in every
street of every town in Spain on Christmas Eve, or, as it is known
there, the _Noche-buena._

If you were pretty Dolores you would surely wear your red or yellow
skirt, or else of striped red and yellow, your best embroidered velvet
jacket,--handed down from mother to daughter, and a wonderful sample
of the handiwork that once made the country famous,--your numerous
necklaces and other ornaments. You would carefully braid your heavy
dark tresses and bedeck your shapely head with bright flowers, then
with your _panderetta_ or tambourine in hand, you too would join the
merry throng that fill the air with mirthful songs and music on
_Noche-buena_; for remember,

"This is the eve of Christmas,
No sleep from now till morn."

The air is full of the spirit of unrest, castanets click joyously,
tambourines jingle their silvery strains, while guitars and other
musical instruments help to swell the babel of sound preceding the
hour of the midnight mass:

"At twelve will the child be born,"

and if you have not already done some especially good deed to some
fellow mortal, you will hasten to cle