ad ever
spent, I should be obliged to dip my pen, not in ink, but in a solution
of rainbow, or dancing sun-beams, or in any thing else that is proved to
be the most joyful thing in nature. At dinner-table, after being helped
the second time to a slice of "splendid" turkey with oyster sauce,
little Louis Green, the youngest of the party, occasioned a general
burst of laughter by laying down his knife and fork, which certainly
deserved a little rest if activity ever can earn it, and leaning back in
his chair, saying with the greatest earnestness: "Uncle, if I were asked
to point out the very happiest time of the whole year, I would fix upon
Christmas day, at exactly this hour--the dinner hour--as the thing for
me!"

"O you gormandizer!" said his sister Ellen, "you don't really think the
dinner the best part of the day?"

"Indeed I do, though," replied Louis; "and I rather guess a good many
people are of the same opinion. And, sister Ellen, if you were a boy,
and just come home from boarding-school, where they always want you to
eat potatoes, I think you'd value turkey and mince-pie as much as I do!
Hurra for Christmas, I say!"

There was some conversation at the dinner-table about the origin of the
different modes of keeping Christmas day in our country. Mr. Wyndham
remarked, that probably the reason why it was so universally kept in
Philadelphia, was from the large mixture of the German element in the
population of Pennsylvania: perhaps the little Swedish colony which Penn
found already settled on the ground when he came over, may have had some
influence, as the nations in the middle and north of Europe have always
celebrated the day, making it a sort of festival of home, and fireside
pleasures. He said that when he was a young man he had passed a winter
in Germany, and was spending some time in the house of a friend, in the
month of December: being very intimate with all the family, he had been
admitted into numerous little secrets, both by young and old. He had
seen beforehand the drawings and the ornamental needle-work which were
intended as a surprise to the parents, and were executed after they had
retired to rest; and he had been allowed to hear the new songs and
pieces of instrumental music, learnt by stealth during their absence
from home; and had even been privileged to hear the little boy of eight,
the pet of the family, recite the verses composed in honor of the joyful
occasion, by his oldest sister. And th