"Santa Claus" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to call for you, Reinhard," he said, "You had already gone out, but Santa Claus had paid ...
— Immensee • Theodore W. Storm
... Hansen's control room was hardly the ogre he had been prepared for. He looked, Hansen was later to reflect, like Santa Claus with muscles in place of the fat. Wearing an almost unheard of beard and dressed in rough clothes, he walked across the room and made short work of the usual formalities. "Name's Candle," said the man. "Where's those two phonies ...
— No Moving Parts • Murray F. Yaco
... they advised that the rag-doll be found as soon as possible and restored to its mourning parent. The Child sniffed at therapeutics, chewed a thumb, and wailed for her Betsy. And all this time cablegrams were coming from Santa Claus saying that he would soon be here and enjoining us to show a true Christian spirit and let up on the pool-rooms and tontine policies and platoon systems long enough to give him a welcome. Everywhere ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... these big wholesale places seemed like the storehouses of Santa Claus. In reality they were great halls, lined with parallel rows of counters. The counters were covered with boxes and the boxes were filled with toys. Along the aisles between the counters moved crowds of ...
— Maida's Little Shop • Inez Haynes Irwin
... the middle of the room? It seemed to be a large table covered all over with a cloth. What could it be? Willy said, "Grandma, that table looks as if something was on it;" and little Sarah said, "Grandma, I guess Santa Claus ...
— Aunt Fanny's Story-Book for Little Boys and Girls • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... we should or should not teach children the Santa Claus myth pops up anew with Christmas time; and puzzles anew anyone who regards this festival ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... boy has a "jumping-jack" left over from Christmas. he may make this do his fishing for him and serve as well as the "tip-up," or he can easily make the jumping-jack himself independent of Santa Claus. The string which is pulled to make the joints move is tied securely to the fishing line; the hook is baited and lowered into the water through a hole in the ice. The "jumping-jack" waves his legs ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... waiting, for as time slipped they began to dread an accident had befallen him. To have him back safe, and the parcels safe, was perfect joy, and the two youngest darted from the house to try the sleds Santa Claus had sent them by their father. Mrs Craig, a tidy purpose-like woman, was profuse in thanks to me for helping her husband. Archie's father and mother struck me, at the first glance, as the finest old couple my eyes had ever rested upon. He was tall and rugged in frame, as became ...
— The Narrative of Gordon Sellar Who Emigrated to Canada in 1825 • Gordon Sellar
... exclaimed the man. He took the toy out, turned it over and looked at it from all sides. As he did so he happened to punch the Clown in the chest, and of course the Clown banged his cymbals together, as he had been taught to do in the workshop of Santa Claus, ...
— The Story of Calico Clown • Laura Lee Hope
... On Christmas Eve Santa Claus came in his sledge heaped high with presents, urging his team of reindeer across the field. He was on his way to the farmhouse where Betsey lived with her ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... an' I may be seein' Santa Claus t' tell un what a rare fine maid Emily's been an' ask un not t' be forgettin' she. He's been wonderful forgetful not t' be comin' round last Christmas an' th' Christmas before I'll have ...
— Ungava Bob - A Winter's Tale • Dillon Wallace
... in open scorn. "Come," he coaxed, "jest supposin' we was youngsters again, a-tellin' Santa Claus what we wanted. What would you ...
— Across the Years • Eleanor H. Porter
... swung over and lowered upon the brick quay. The little French children who made the neighborhood a bedlam with their gibberish and the outlandish clatter of their wooden shoes; the women who sat in their windows watching these good things being unloaded, as Santa Claus might unload his pack in the bosom of some poor family; the United States officers who were in authority at the port, and all the clamoring rabble which made the ship's vicinity a picnic ground, did not know, of course, ...
— Tom Slade on a Transport • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... Dodd, and Mrs. Holmes each found a note under their plates when they sat down. Uncle Israel's face relaxed into an expression of childlike joy when he found the envelope addressed to him. "Valentine, I reckon," he said, "or mebbe it's sunthin' from Santa Claus." ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed
... him, they saw it was a man wrapped in a handsome sealskin cloak, wearing a sealskin cap; his face, half-concealed by a muffler of the same material, disclosing only a pair of long mustaches, and two keen dark eyes. "It's a son of old Santa Claus!" whispered Addy. The girls tittered audibly as they tumbled into the sleigh; they had regained their former spirits. "Where shall I take you?" said the stranger quietly. There was a hurried whispering; and then Kate said boldly, ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... murmured. So off to bed they went, with a couple of raisins each by way of comfort; and when she thought they were snoring she slipped softly into her room to fetch the brown paper parcels, and the long woolen stockings which year after year had done duty for the Santa Claus gifts. If she suspected it, she took good care not to look; nevertheless, the fact remains that the three little snorers did open their eyes for a brief moment, and did see the parcels going out, and the stockings following them, and then turned round to hug each ...
— Good Luck • L. T. Meade
... Since he was so big, him an' I Have been like good old cronies, agreein' on the sly To skip the years between. He was jest goin' on five years—an' I am "Grandpa Brown," Although he named me "Santa Claus" when fust he come to town— An' my white beard he seen. But now it seems to me a'most As soon as he was born, ...
— With the Colors - Songs of the American Service • Everard Jack Appleton
... Santa Claus one time Told this joke on himself in rhyme: One Christmas, in the early din That ever leads the morning in, I heard the happy children shout In rapture at the toys turned out Of bulging little socks and shoes— A joy at which ...
— Songs of Friendship • James Whitcomb Riley
... day before Christmas, Rob thought it would be a fine thing to run down the High Street and see what was going on. After dinner his mother put on his fur cap and bright scarf, and filled his pockets with biscuits. She told him to be very polite to Santa Claus if he should happen ...
— The Book of Stories for the Storyteller • Fanny E. Coe
... suggested by this spot where the very first "Merry Christmas!" was uttered in all the world, and from whence the friend of my childhood, Santa Claus, departed on his first journey, to gladden and continue to gladden roaring firesides on wintry mornings in many a distant land forever and forever. I touch, with reverent finger, the actual spot where the infant Jesus lay, but ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... major and the silvery hair of his good wife were significant of venerable age, but there were younger people in the family, and with them a fair sprinkling of children. Of these the diminutive stockings were duly hung in a row over the big fireplace, waiting for the expected coming of Santa Claus, while their late wearers were soon huddled in bed, though with little hope of sleep in the excitement and sense of enchantment that surrounded them. Their disappearance made little void in the crowd that filled the parlor, a gay and merry ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... of the bookshelves stood a pile of boy's books and some broken toys with the dust of ages upon them. He picked up a row of painted soldiers, and balanced them thoughtfully on his hand. Then he looked into one of the picture-books. It was a Santa Claus story; some of the pictures were torn and some stuck together, a reminder of sticky, candied hands. He gently replaced the book and the toys, and stared absently into space. How long he stood that way he did not recollect, but he was finally aroused by the sound of slamming ...
— The Princess Elopes • Harold MacGrath
... very end, as Santa Claus and his revels were close upon them, while the work done had been wonderful, that which we ought to have done but which we had left undone, was simply terrible. Here were pictures that must be brought home from the frame-man, who had never pretended he would send them; there were ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale
... asked him, to take the letters and packages and go on farther to the Canyon Hotel. Thus it was that on the 20th day of November 189—, Josh Cree, sixteen years old, tall and ruddy, rode through the snow to the kitchen door of the Canyon Hotel and was welcomed as though he were old Santa Claus himself. ...
— Wild Animals at Home • Ernest Thompson Seton
... the fence. Harry Pendomer did not like this funny lady who had hurt, frightened eyes. He did not believe in the whale, of course, any more than he did in Santa Claus. But like most children, he patiently accepted the fact that grown people are unaccountable overlords appointed by some vast betise, whom, if only through prudential motives, ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... I will be in your debt. And so will my associate, Ali Moustafa. You will like him. He is a great, jolly man, three times my size. If he had a beard, he would resemble your Santa Claus. And he will insist that you accept some token of his appreciation. I will send the instructions separately, so you need not bother with ...
— The Egyptian Cat Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... hang up your stocking; Don't count the days any more; Old Santa Claus will soon be knocking, Knocking, ...
— Debris - Selections from Poems • Madge Morris
... to him, put her mouth to his ear, and said, gently, "Do not be frightened, Joggi; they won't cut off your head. My papa will help you, and will not let anybody harm you. And see, Joggi; here is a candy cock, all red. Santa Claus sent you this on the Christmas-tree." And the little girl took the cock very carefully from her pocket, and held ...
— Rico And Wiseli - Rico And Stineli, And How Wiseli Was Provided For • Johanna Spyri
... Line—the very ships for the Newcastle and Thames river trade—and he said he couldn't think of it now that the submarine season was over. Then I offered 'em to young Topping, who thinks of running a line to the West Coast, but he said that he didn't believe in Fairies or Santa Claus or any ...
— Bones in London • Edgar Wallace
... brother, stumbling over a little pile of snow as he hurried up beside his sister, who had gone on ahead of him. "Did you find the right path, Flossie? But then I don't believe you did. I don't believe anybody, not even Santa Claus himself, could find a ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at Home • Laura Lee Hope
... evening, and his tall, straight figure went prancing down the street. When the Doctor entered his home, he found Laura and Lila sitting by the open fire. The child was in her night gown and they were discussing Santa Claus. ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... the trenches at Neuve Chapelle. If Santa Claus had come that way, remembering those grown-up boys of ours, the old man with his white beard must have lifted his red gown high—waist-high—when he waded up some of the communication trenches to the firing-lines, and he would have staggered ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... natural relations to their elders. There were no tender intimacies. They were really as wild as young rabbits. If we met one in the road by chance and he did not take literally to his heels, we could see him running in his spirit. We discovered that none of them had ever even heard of Santa Claus, although most of them confessed to a reluctant biblical acquaintance with Adam ...
— A Circuit Rider's Wife • Corra Harris
... I was firing, I have seen him come in, in winter, with his beard white with frost and ice, and some smoke-shoveling wit dubbed him Santa Claus. ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... in Bryant, How to Tell Stories to Children; His Christmas Turkey, in Vawter, The Rabbi's Ransom; In the Great Walled Country, in Alden, Why the Chimes Rang; Little Girl's Christmas, in Dickinson and Skinner, Children's Book of Christmas Stories; Santa Claus and the Mouse, Poulsson (poem), in St. Nicholas Christmas Book; The Christmas Cake, in Lindsay, More Mother Stories; The Christmas Tree, in Austin, Basket Woman; The First New England Christmas, in Stone and Fickett, ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... his neck. Now, in September, they were already frozen solid, and you travelled over them with a sledge and a team of reindeer, bundled up in furs and looking, except for the whiskers, like the pictures of Santa Claus you had seen when you were a kid. But most of the traffic of the army was upon the rivers which cut the forests and swamps, and the single railroad, which was being put ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... for flower holders; here are delightful watering-pots, exquisitely painted; wonderful cake covers, powder-boxes, blotters, brackets;—every single thing a little gem of clever design and individual workmanship. It is more fascinating than Toyland or Santa Claus' shop. These "rocking toys" are particularly fascinating: the dreadnought that careens at perilous angles, and the kicking mule which knocks its driver over as often as you like to make it. Shelves on shelves of these wonder-things complete, ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... kept his mind active in as many other directions as possible, like a child deliberately feasting upon thoughts of Santa Claus though on the way ...
— Five Thousand an Hour - How Johnny Gamble Won the Heiress • George Randolph Chester
... chimney all the time! Daddy Longlegs could have crawled up it just as easily as Santa Claus could have crept down it! But because he had never left anybody's house or shop by way of the chimney, Daddy Longlegs never once thought of ...
— The Tale of Daddy Longlegs - Tuck-Me-In Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... New Year's Day visiting, of which General Washington said, "New York will in process of years gradually change its ancient customs and manners, but whatever changes take place, never forget the cordial observance of New Year's Day." So, also, to the Dutch we owe our Christmas visit of Santa Claus, colored eggs at Easter, doughnuts, crullers, and New Year's cookies. Laws of morality were rigidly enforced, as in New England. Furniture and equipages were extremely simple. Carpets were hardly known before 1750, and each housekeeper prided herself ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.
... As a veritable Santa Claus presented each present, the all-important Johnnie was ready to exclaim: "Thank old Sandy for that, can't you? What a hale old chap is Sandy!" Turning to Lieutenant Trevelyan, the incorrigible ventured to ask who might be ...
— Lady Rosamond's Secret - A Romance of Fredericton • Rebecca Agatha Armour
... cooper. I was reinforced in this opinion by seeing that it was the production of one Fitz Swackhammer. But my friend Dr. Snodhead, a very learned man, professor of Low Dutch and High German in the college of Santa Claus and St. Pott's, to whom I handed the work for translation, giving him a box of sperm candles for his trouble — this same Dr. Snodhead, so soon as he spied the book, assured me that Dan Coopman did not mean The Cooper, but The Merchant. In ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... not in a "round-o-caliker," but in a scarlet-flannel nightgown, comfortable and gay. Then they had bowls of bread and milk, and gingerbread, and ate their suppers by the fire. And then Glory told them the old story of Santa Claus; and how, if they hung their stockings by the chimney, there was no knowing what they mightn't ...
— Faith Gartney's Girlhood • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... Doll's party. All the little girls of the vicinity who have Dolls, have assembled in order to give their little favorites a nice party. You see they all have Dolls. They are good girls. They are very obedient. They attend school regularly, and as they are well-behaved girls, Santa Claus left each of them a Doll at Christmas time. They have learned their lessons for to-morrow, as their mothers have told them, that duty before pleasure is the good girl's motto. They will play sometimes with their Dolls. Will ...
— The Girl's Cabinet of Instructive and Moral Stories • Uncle Philip
... with the Golden Locks, Santa Claus's Partner—the sweetest little kitten in the world, and her ...
— Santa Claus's Partner • Thomas Nelson Page
... mean—says I'm not going to have much of a Christmas this year. I'm trying not to mind. I suppose it's because Santa Claus can't get to the Riviera, with his sleigh and reindeer. How could he, Miss Jane, when there's no snow, and not even a scrap ...
— Rosemary - A Christmas story • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... Every time he hears music or thinks he hears it he stops and vamps with his feet. When he does this my friend bends forward and clutches him round the neck tightly. I think he is trying to whisper in the horse's ear and beg him in Heaven's name to forbear; but what he looks like is Santa Claus with a clean shave, sitting on the combing of a very steep house with his feet hanging over the eaves, peeking down the chimney to see if the children are asleep yet. When that horse dies he will still have finger marks on his throat and ...
— Cobb's Anatomy • Irvin S. Cobb
... a familiar name for St. Nicholas, the patron saint of children. On Christmas Eve German children have presents stowed away in their socks and shoes while they are asleep, and the little credulous ones suppose that Santa Claus or Klaus placed ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... a shame," she said to herself, "those children will have no Christmas at all, and they'll never believe in Santa Claus again. They will lose their faith forever and from this it will go to other things." She sat there dreaming for a long while and the vision of a very different ...
— The heart of happy hollow - A collection of stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... Nothing of the sort. Have you forgotten what night this is, Jack Frost? Don't you know that this is Christmas Eve, when the fires are all put out, so that Santa Claus can climb down without getting burned? That's why I was taking a little nap. See? He winks with ...
— Down the Chimney • Shepherd Knapp
... light, and we may be sure that they did not wait for the lazy winter sun to put in an appearance before beginning their investigations. Amid shouts of merriment the revelations of a remarkably inventive Santa Claus were greeted, while Polly held her climbing excitement in check until the hour should be ripe for greater things. But when, at last, just as the sun was peeping in at the kitchen window, Dan's ferret fingers penetrated the extreme toe of his sock, she grew so agitated that she quite forgot ...
— A Bookful of Girls • Anna Fuller
... we had any parties for pastime? Well ma'am, not many. We never was allowed to have no parties nor dances, only from Christmas Day to New Year's eve. We had plenty good things to eat on Christmas Day and Santa Claus was good to us too. We'd have all kinds of frolics from Christmas to New Years but never was allowed to have ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... cried Phronsie, easily pleased; "that'll be best." So for the next two days, they were almost distracted; the youngest ones asking countless questions about Santa Claus, and how he possibly could get down the chimney, Joel running his head up as far as he dared, to see ...
— Five Little Peppers And How They Grew • Margaret Sidney
... dialect, slang, provincialism, accent, and so forth. Now that I have heard their voices, all the beauty of Bret Harte is being ruined for me, because I find myself catching through the roll of his rhythmical prose the cadence of his peculiar fatherland. Get an American lady to read to you "How Santa Claus Came to Simpson's Bar," and see how much is, under her tongue, left of the ...
— American Notes • Rudyard Kipling
... merrily to new and doubtful flowers. The air tastes cold, but the sun is warm. The great spring humming and promise is in the air. And a few thousand feet higher you wallow over the surface of drifts while a winter wind searches your bones. I used to think that Santa Claus dwelt at the North Pole. Now I am convinced that he has a workshop somewhere among the great mountains where dwell the Seasons, and that his reindeer paw for grazing in the alpine meadows below ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White
... been caught they all went into the sitting-room to see what Santa Claus had brought, and there were eight stockings all stuffed full! Three long, white stockings, that looked as if they might be mamma's, were for the little girls, and three coarse woollen stockings were for the little nigs; and now whom do you suppose the others were for? Why, for Mammy and Aunt Milly, ...
— Diddie, Dumps & Tot - or, Plantation child-life • Louise-Clarke Pyrnelle
... soul! How odd! Santa Claus must have tucked them in, as I came through his street. Well, I'll put them away until to-morrow. They're ...
— Marjorie's New Friend • Carolyn Wells
... no fool," he informed himself, "even if he is gone a little in one particular. He certainly does believe in himself for fair! Wonder where he got his education—notice the English he writes? And, say—going blind! Fancy that! Santa Claus, you overwhelm me, you are too bountiful, you are too generous—you'll have nothing left for the next chimney! Deaf and dumb—and blind. Really, I do not deserve this—I really don't—let me at least tip the hat-boy, ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard
... It is the most opulent, most gorgeous land on earth—a land whose wisest are but little wiser than its dullest; a land where the rulers have minds like little children and the law-givers believe in Santa Claus; where ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... of the town into toy-like suburbs, with little streets, and tiny houses on dykes, each one with its drawbridge across the stream running on either side a dyke-road. And now we seemed to be in the heart of toyland. It was like a place built by Santa Claus, to come to at Christmas time, and choose presents to fill ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... from the afternoon when he had first cajoled her into autobiography—a vivid, fire-tipped little thing with her mother's piquancy. He gleaned that day that she was "a quarter to four years old;" that she was mamma's girl, but papa was a friend of Santa Claus; that she went to "ball-dances" every day clad in "dest a stirt 'cause big ladies don't ever wear waist-es at night;" that she had once ridden in a merry-go-round and it made her "all homesick right here," patting ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... kitchen, hung up in a row; Santa Claus has filled them,—yes, from top to toe; Purple, gold, and crimson, paint the fallen snow,— On Christmas Day, so early in ...
— The Nursery, January 1873, Vol. XIII. - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest People • Various
... staying his hand: "What are you doing? Putting Jimmy's engine into Susy's stocking! She'll be perfectly insulted when she finds it, for she'll know you weren't paying the least attention, and you can't blame Santa Claus for it with her. If that's what you've been doing with the other stockings— But there aren't any others. Don't tell me you've just begun! ...
— The Daughter of the Storage - And Other Things in Prose and Verse • William Dean Howells
... Santa Claus inserted an upright piano, a fur dolman, a Ford, and a few like knick-knacks in the Chicago girl's stocking. When he saw that it was not yet half filled, he withdrew to the roof, plumped down on the snow, ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... good many weeks yet to Christmas-time," remarked Lulu; "and perhaps our Santa Claus folks will think up something ...
— Elsie's Kith and Kin • Martha Finley
... I don't believe in ghosts. I don't believe in fairies, either, or Santa Claus. But I like to read about them and write about them, and—and wish that ...
— Mistress Anne • Temple Bailey
... Santa Claus, Passing that way, Peeped into the shoe top And saw how they lay— With their round, rosy faces All shining with tears, And resolved to do ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf; a Practical Plan of Character Building, Volume I (of 17) - Fun and Thought for Little Folk • Various
... between smoke and poetry, over and above their being both Fads. Besides, Mrs. Crowl was sulking in the kitchen. She had been arranging for an excursion with Peter and the children to Victoria Park. (She had dreamed of the Crystal Palace, but Santa Claus had put no gifts in the cobbler's shoes.) Now she could not risk spoiling the feather in her bonnet. The nine brats expressed their disappointment by slapping one another on the staircases. Peter felt ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... not in either lies the curse: The hell of it's because I don't know which loss hurt the worse — My God or Santa Claus. ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service
... nursery, caressing an immense family of wax children of all ages, from babyhood up to twelve years. A grandmother was there, too, and a hospital nurse, and several playful dogs and cats. In another house they were having a Christmas tree, and Santa Claus had come in person to be master of ceremonies. How the children on the other side of a partition, engaged in learning lessons at school desks, must have envied those whose Christmas had prematurely come! But best of all was the automobile race; or, perhaps, the zoo of window world, where Teddy bears ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... a Santa Claus! Hang your coat on the landing and shake yourself over the banisters. Had ...
— In a German Pension • Katherine Mansfield
... had heard "'Twas the night before Christmas," and hung up a scarlet stocking many sizes too large for her, and pinned a sprig of holly on her little white nightgown, to show Santa Claus that she was a "truly" Christmas child, and dreamed of fur-coated saints and toy-packs and reindeer, and wished everybody a "Merry Christmas" before it was light in the morning, and lent every one of her new toys to the neighbors' children before noon, and ...
— The Bird's Christmas Carol • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... upon a hill-side steep Lies a city wrapt in sleep. Up and down the lonely street Sleepy watchmen pace their beat. Little heeds them Santa Claus; Not for him are human laws. With a leap he leaves the ground, Scales the chimney at ...
— Ballads • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... York. I've got up at cock-crow to be in time for grace at the breakfast table. I took charge of a class in Sabbath-school, and I handed out the infernal cornucopias at the church Christmas tree, while he played Santa Claus. What more can a fellow do to earn his money? Don't you call that sweating? No, sir; I've danced like a damned hand-organ monkey for the pennies he left me, and I had to grin and touch my hat and make believe I liked it. Now I'm going to spend every cent ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm • David Belasco
... buy a tree at Brook Ridge. There was no need. Across the road, partway up the slope, was a collection of green and shapely little cedars—a regular Santa Claus grove—and on the afternoon before Christmas, a gray, still afternoon, heavy with mystic portent, Elizabeth and I took a small ax and climbed up there, and picked and selected, just as we had done in those earlier years, and came home with our tree, stealthily ...
— Dwellers in Arcady - The Story of an Abandoned Farm • Albert Bigelow Paine
... Charlie!" Marjorie's lips smiled tender reminiscence of the tiny boy's jubilation over his wonderful discovery that Santa Claus had not forgotten him. "His Christmas will be a merry one this year, even to the good, strong leg that he hoped Santa ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... him the military salute he had taught her, and then ran to throw her arms around him. "Oh, gran'fathah!" she exclaimed, between her kisses, "you'se jus' as good as Santa Claus, ...
— The Little Colonel • Annie Fellows Johnston
... how much they liked the real Dutch supper her mother gave them one day—"suppawn and malck[AN] and rulliches,[AO] with chocolate and soft waffles, you know,"—and how General the Baron Riedesel had said that if they stayed till Christmas he would play at Saint Claes (Santa Claus) for them. ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks
... George and Job paddle across that I might see it. A continuation of the hills, south of the valley we had passed in the morning, swung round the south shore of the lake and culminated in what I called Santa Claus Mountain; for the outline of its rugged top looked as if the tired old fellow had there lain down to rest, that he might be ready to start out again on his long winter journey. I knew then that the beautiful valley, through which we had just passed, must be that vale ...
— A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador • Mina Benson Hubbard (Mrs. Leonidas Hubbard, Junior)
... she cried. "Oh, Santa Claus!" And jumping up from the floor, she ran to meet him as fast as her little fat legs ...
— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells
... road agent reached for the money, and then growled at her in a tone which had suddenly become gruff and overbearing. It suggested to Miss Post the voice of the head of the family playing Santa Claus for the children. "And now ...
— Ranson's Folly • Richard Harding Davis
... detached or furloughed, came home to camp. There came in recruits, too—men who last year were too old, boys who last year were not old enough. "Look here, boys! Thar goes Father Time!—No, it's Rip Van Winkle!"—"No, it's Santa Claus!—Anyhow, he's going to fight!" "Look here, boys! here comes another cradle. Good Lord, he's just a toddler! He don't see a razor in his dreams yet! Quartermaster's out of nursing-bottles!" "Shet up! the way ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... exclaimed, as if surprised. "It's a mighty lucky thing you told me that, now, or I never would have thought to bring you anything. You didn't know that I am a sort of birthday Santa Claus, did you? Just look out for me next Saturday. If I'm not there by breakfast-time, wait till noon, and if I don't get there by that time it'll be because something has happened; anyway, somebody'll ...
— Ole Mammy's Torment • Annie Fellows Johnston
... the hands, And sing out with glee! For Christmas is coming and merry are we! Now swift o'er the snow The tiny reindeer Are trotting and bringing Good Santa Claus near. ...
— Finger plays for nursery and kindergarten • Emilie Poulsson
... Certainly, she was not one of the spoiling, indulgent, eiderdown-silk-cushion kind of Grannies that some children have now; but Lois loved her with all her heart and was never really afraid of her. What stories she could tell! What wonderful stockings full of treasures Santa Claus brought down her chimneys on Christmas Eve to the happy grandchild staying with her! Lois loved to sit beside her 'dear Grandmamma,' and to watch her in her corner by the fire, upright as ever, knitting. Even on the long drive to Come-to-Good, the ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... how true they appear to a child, the time comes when he rejects them as impossible, although he may always be indebted to them for keen pleasure and the awakening of his imagination. Belief in the myth of Santa Claus never destroyed a child's love and respect for his parents; faith in the unlimited power of good fairies never made a child less able to recognize the laws of nature. It is the halfway truths that are troublesome; it is the little misrepresentations not liable to be detected that ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... was full, some of the boys and young men being obliged to sit on the edge of the little platform and on the floor, and everybody seemed happy. The next evening I drove about six miles, to the Oak Creek Station, to share in the festivities at Cross Bear's house. There, too, they had a tree, and a Santa Claus dressed up in a big, shaggy, fur coat, a very tall hat decorated with Indian designs, and in his hand he carried a stout staff on which he leaned, as if he felt the burden of many winters. He was just as funny as your Santa Claus, as he stood bowing and bowing, ...
— The American Missionary — Vol. 48, No. 10, October, 1894 • Various
... commuters, one loaded down with a patent runner sled, the other chewin' a cigar impatient and consultin' his watch; a fat woman with a six-year-old who was teasin' to go see Santa Claus in the window again; a sporty-lookin' old boy with a red tie who was blinkin' googoos out of his puffy eyes; and then there was me, draped in my new near-English top coat and watchin' the ...
— Torchy, Private Sec. • Sewell Ford
... cranberries trying to look as though they were sweet; great fat pumpkins; piles of green and piles of rosy apples; bunches of fragrant thyme; and more turkeys, some with and some without their feathered coats, but all, as I said before, with gay ribbons around their necks. Dear me! if Santa Claus could have only looked into that window and peeped into that shop, how pleased he would have been, and how he would have laughed! And he certainly would have taken Mr. Onosander Golong for a long-lost brother, for never before did mortal man ...
— Harper's Young People, December 23, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... Russia has no Santa Claus or Christmas tree, although the festival is celebrated by church services and by ceremonies similar to those of ...
— Myths and Legends of Christmastide • Bertha F. Herrick
... smash all into flinders, the great big mirror in the hall an' lots an' lots of winders. An' candy that'll make me sick, so ma all night will hold me an' make pa get the doctor quick an' never try to scold me. An' Santa Claus, if pa says I'm naughty it's a story. Jus' say if she whips me I'll die an' surely go ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 • Various
... for their servants, not one of whom was forgotten, and Annie and I, and, by his own special request, Mr. Arlington, were arranging in proper order the gifts of that most considerate, mirthful and generous of spirits, Santa Claus. This morning the sun rose as clear and bright as though it, too, rejoiced in the joy of humanity; but long before the sun had showed himself, little feet were pattering from room to room, and childish voices shouting ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh
... of tissue paper, lay two pretty dresses, a blue serge school dress and a fluffy, shimmery party frock; beneath them a gay sweater and tam o'shanter. Upon a card, enclosed, had been written, plainly in Uncle Johnny's handwriting: "From Santa Claus." ...
— Highacres • Jane Abbott
... thoughts. The two small boys were chubby and light haired, after the mother. When Dorian managed to get the children close to him, they reminded him that Christmas was only one day distant. Did he live near by? Was he going home for Christmas? What was Santa Claus going to bring him? ...
— Dorian • Nephi Anderson
... a grim irony in two scenes. The Beautiful Story (Santa Claus), and two joyous playlets, The Villain in the Piece and A Question of Morality. The Independent finds them "Well worth reading ... the treatment is fresh and ...
— The Theory of the Theatre • Clayton Hamilton
... the primitive Knickerbockers, or it might have clung to some of the drowsy burgomasters who had forsaken the pictorial tiles of dear old Amsterdam about the time of Peter de Laar, or Il Bombaccia, as the Italians call him, got into disgrace in Rome. However this may be, certain it is that Santa Claus, or St. Nicholas, the kind Patron-saint of the Juveniles, makes his annual appearance on Christmas Eve, for the purpose of dispensing gifts to all good children. This festive elf is supposed to be a ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... he explained, "reminds me. He's got his dates mixed. He ought to be saying 'E pluribus unum,' to match his feathers, instead of trying to work the Santa Claus graft. It reminds me of the time me and Liverpool Sam got our ideas of things tangled up on the coast of Costa Rica on account of the weather and other phenomena to be met ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... snow under my feet on my way to the church. I remembered the rapture of those Christmas mornings at home, when we children stole down stairs by candlelight to the warm room filled with the aromatic perfume of the Christmas tree, that stood there resplendent with presents from old Santa Claus—Noah's arks, mimic landscapes, dolls, sleds, colored cornucopias bursting with bonbons, and especially those books of fairy-tales from whose rich creamy pages exhaled a most divine and musty fragrance. Ah, the memory of our childhood's ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... began to cry, repeating that he wanted a gee-gee. The other children dustered round trying to coax and comfort him by telling him that no one was allowed to have anything out of the windows yet—until Christmas—and that Santa Claus would be sure to bring him a gee-gee then; but these arguments failed to make any impression on Freddie, who tearfully insisted ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... reindeer, and thousands upon thousands of beautiful gifts—all of his own making—has he borne to the children of every land; for he loves them all alike, and they all alike love him, I trow. So truly do they love him that they call him Santa Claus, and I am sure that he must be a saint; for he has lived these many hundred years, and we, who know that he was born of Faith and Love, believe that ...
— A Little Book of Profitable Tales • Eugene Field
... guess—-" the man tried gently to disengage the horse from the jealous grip of its owner, "I guess we'd better leave this horse here for some other little feller, Georgie," said he, "and we'll go see Santa Claus." ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... go without saying that this idea of God has about as much intellectual validity as belief in Santa Claus and is even more sentimental, in that it is a deliberate attempt to disguise in pleasant and familiar terms a fundamentally materialistic interpretation of reality. The vital failure of this spiritualized naturalism, however, lies in the inability of its ...
— Christianity and Progress • Harry Emerson Fosdick
... The Curlytops and their playmates now began counting the days until this grand holiday should arrive. Trouble, with the help of Janet, had written his letter to Santa Claus, and the other children had told each other (so Aunt Sallie and Uncle Toby could hear) the things they wished ...
— The Curlytops and Their Playmates - or Jolly Times Through the Holidays • Howard R. Garis
... Christmas is almost here. That's another perfectly gigantic happiness," was Marjorie's extravagant comment. "I love Christmas! That reminds me, Mother, you said you would help me play Santa Claus to little Charlie. I don't believe he has ever spent a really jolly Christmas. Of course, Mr. Stevens and Constance will give him things, but he needs a whole lot more presents besides. He climbed into my lap and told me ...
— Marjorie Dean High School Freshman • Pauline Lester
... James R. Osgood & Co. offered him ten thousand dollars for whatever he might write in a year, and he accepted the handsome retainer. It did not stimulate him to remarkable output. He wrote four stories, including "How Santa Claus Came to Simpson's Bar," and five poems, including "Concepcion de Arguello." The offer was not ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... her and chattered and talked and asked questions, and fingered their gifts like a group of children at a visit of Santa Claus. After lunch Drusilla announced that five of the old ladies should go with her to the near-by city, where she was going to take Barbara ...
— Drusilla with a Million • Elizabeth Cooper
... person left behind, or else he seemed forgotten, as a guest of no account. "What a Christmas Day!" was again his thought, while he dragged before his mind's eye old pictures of his English home, his dead mother, Santa Claus stockings, and all sorts of pathetic things. He resolved to quit Redford on the morrow, and spend the last hours of his leave ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... way to the train we saw a queer old pawn shop, filled with wonderful antiques. Some of the party claim that the shop was bought out, so some of our San Francisco relatives will get an inkling from this where Santa Claus may have gotten some of their ...
— The Log of the Empire State • Geneve L.A. Shaffer
... in the flue; Old Mr. Santa Claus, What is keeping you? Twilight and firelight Shadows come ...
— Required Poems for Reading and Memorizing - Third and Fourth Grades, Prescribed by State Courses of Study • Anonymous
... done tole me, and my hart it have been hurtin' so ever since that I have to hide every now and then so as to git my breath good. Sometimes I can't help chokin', I can't. She seen a doll in pink tarlton onct and the other night I heard her talkin' up the chimney and she was askin' Santa Claus to bring her one if he could spare it. Ifen you can't git all the things with the pig money, please'm git the doll, and in pink, please'm, and ...
— The Man in Lonely Land • Kate Langley Bosher
... These tender young stomachs cannot well digest All the sweets that they get; toys and books are the best. But I know my advice will not find many friends, For the custom of Christmas the other way tends. The fathers and mothers, and Santa Claus, too, Are exceedingly blind. Well, a good-night to you!" And I heard him exclaim, as he drove out of sight: These feastings and ...
— The Night Before Christmas and Other Popular Stories For Children • Various
... of customers, long parted from him, to become immersed in choosing and rejecting; and now, with a fair part of his mission accomplished, he was ready to go on to the next place, and turned to beckon McLean. He found him obliterated in a corner beside a life-sized image of Santa Claus, standing as still as the ...
— Lin McLean • Owen Wister
... before Christmas the weather had been very uncertain, and Judith, who had bought Bobbie a new sled was afraid that she would have to pull him on bare sidewalks, and that the stories of Santa Claus and his reindeer would fall rather flat if there were no snow on the ground to add a touch of reality ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett
... of used up, but he stands there waiting for the thrill, with Cousin Egbert beaming on him fondly, like a father that's going in one minute to show the little tots what Santa Claus brought 'em ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... Matching's Easy, but within three weeks of Christmas Day Mr. Van der Pant found a job that he could do in Nottingham, and carried off his family. The two small boys cheered their hearts with paper decorations, but the Christmas Tree was condemned as too German, and it was discovered that Santa Claus had suddenly become Old Father Christmas again. The small boys discovered that the price of lead soldiers had risen, and were unable to buy electric torches, on which they had set their hearts. There ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... a string of hospitals that he visited in addition to his other regular duties. He knew that the men who are gassed lose all their possessions when their clothes are ripped off from them. So this Salvationist made a delightful all-the-year-round Santa Claus out of himself: dressing up in old clothes, because of the mud and dirt through which he must pass, he would sling a pack on his back that would put to shame the one Old Santa used to carry. Shaving things and soap and toothbrushes, handkerchiefs ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill
... not because it hurt him, for you know Santa Claus always sees to it that each doll he makes in his great workshop is covered with a very magical Wish, and this Wish always keeps them from ...
— Raggedy Andy Stories • Johnny Gruelle
... ideas, high rents, and higher education, the home myth is speedily following Santa Claus out of female education, and, argue as one may, New York is the social pace-maker 'East of the Rockies,' as the free delivery furniture companies advertise. I congratulate you anew that the ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... I turned her off? I've been carrying that mortgage for so long it's gray-headed. I can't be Santa Claus for the whole town. Business is business, and I've got to look ...
— Cap'n Eri • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... men arrived during the afternoon, and came in laden with parcels and looking almost like Santa Claus himself. ...
— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells
... the chimney—a mode of entrance whose practicability depended entirely upon the activity and intensity of the fire which burned underneath. The smoke and sparks, although sufficiently disagreeable, were trifles of comparative insignificance. I remember being told, in early infancy, that Santa Claus always came into a house through the chimney; and although I accepted the statement with the unreasoning faith of childhood, I could never understand how that singular feat of climbing down a chimney ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... rubbing his hands joyously. "It is close upon New Year's Day. We will fabricate millions of the little murderers by New Year's Eve, and sell them in large quantities; and when the households are all asleep, and the Christian children are waiting for Santa Claus to come, the small ones will troop from their boxes and the Christian children will die. It ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... holiday the Dutch have is Santa Claus's day. It is on December 6. All the stores are made pretty on that day. Santa Claus is in the windows. He is dressed in red with white fur, and rides a large horse. The streets are crowded with boys and girls to see all this. They have Santa Claus cakes, and gingerbread made like ...
— Big People and Little People of Other Lands • Edward R. Shaw
... make something of this, but found the words meaningless. They merely suggested to him a snowy winter scene of Santa Claus and his innocent equipage. But he ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... sweet, simple child innocently beseeching that to-morrow might be fine for its holiday, or that Santa Claus would be generous; it was the cunning trader, fawning, flattering, propitiating, bribing with fulsome, sycophantic praise (an insult in itself), as well as burnt-offerings, working for his own success here and hereafter, ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... the curiosities of plutology that the patron saint of children who is still honoured at Christmas as Santa Claus should be the same as the dreaded Old Nick of ...
— Storyology - Essays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore • Benjamin Taylor
... little mining camp Santa Claus did not forget us, and spread his presents, in the form of a deluge of rain, on all alike. What a pleasant change to get thoroughly wet through! The storm hardly lasted twenty minutes, but such was its violence that every little creek and watercourse was soon running, and water for weeks to ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie
... children spoke in low, subdued tones, of the visits Santa Claus used to make them in their beautiful homes, before they started across the plains. Now they knew that no Santa Claus could find them in the pathless ...
— History of the Donner Party • C.F. McGlashan
... number of persons I had confidently and happily expected would be present. I saw no one there even remotely resembling my conception of the person who first originated and promulgated the doctrine that all small children should be told at the earliest possible moment that there is no Santa Claus. That was a very severe blow to me, because I had always believed that the descent to eternal perdition would be incomplete unless he had a front seat. And the man who first hit on the plan of employing child labor on night shifts in cotton factories—he was unaccountably absent ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... Christmas" is read. As the names are named the children arise and turn around, then sit down again. Santa Claus is mentioned last. When he is spoken of all change seats. The story teller tries to secure a seat. If she succeeds there is an odd player. He must ...
— Entertainments for Home, Church and School • Frederica Seeger
... referred to, of the allowableness of falsehood in certain cases as a means for the attainment of a good end, is generally entertained. The French have two terrible bugbears, under the names of Monsieur and Madame Croquemitaine, who are as familiar to the imaginations of French children as Santa Claus is, in a much more agreeable way, to the juvenile fancy at our firesides. Monsieur and Madame Croquemitaine are frightful monsters, who come down the chimney, or through the roof, at night, and carry off bad children. They learn from their little ...
— Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... story suited to be read to the little child. It is the experience of a little girl with new shoes and her dream about her old shoes. But the story lacks in structure, there is not the steady rise to one great action, the episode of the Santa Claus tree is somewhat foreign and unnecessary, and the conclusion falls flat because the end seems to continue after the problem ...
— A Study of Fairy Tales • Laura F. Kready
... and rake your young olive-sprouts? upon your word of honor, Madam, you have not? You never tell nursery-tales of ghosts or fairies; you have conscientiously stripped from the dark closet every vestige of a legend; you have permitted juvenile inspection of the chimney, to prove that Santa Claus could not descend its sooty flue without grievous nigritude of the anticipated doll's frock, and have logically appealed to Miss Bran Beeswax's satin silveriness in proof of the non-existence of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Christmas pervaded everything, and even the invalid playfully asked Alsie if she could give him a hint as to what he might find in his sock on the eventful morning. Uncle Dick had been instructed to bring home all the Santa Claus posters that might be found in the newspaper office or bookshop, and there was already quite a stack of colored pictures on hand, showing Santa Claus in every stage of his wonderful yearly trip round the earth. ...
— Grandfather's Love Pie • Miriam Gaines
... smuggled in a small Christmas tree, while another one had purchased the long whiskers that always go with a genuine "Santa Claus", so dear to ...
— The Trail of the Tramp • A-No. 1 (AKA Leon Ray Livingston)
... and Nimblewits invade My cash in Santa Claus's name) In full the hard, hard times surveyed; Denounced all waste as crime ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... "It isn't for Santa Claus at all, darling it is for my papa and mamma's wedding. To stand up, so they can be married over again. Now kiss me, and ...
— Dotty Dimple at Play • Sophie May
... to see up there, Lub?" asked Ethan, who had also it seemed been watching the other. "This isn't the time for old Santa Claus to come down with his pack of toys. His reindeer need snow for their sledge, ...
— Phil Bradley's Mountain Boys - The Birch Bark Lodge • Silas K. Boone
... delightful, and made Santa Claus laugh long and loud. He would not have cared if she had brought the house down on his ears, so long as she had a bright smile and a kiss for him. But when Boreas Bluster stopped to see how his young ward was getting on, he shook his head gravely and told Mrs. Christmas he feared she was spoiling ...
— Prince Lazybones and Other Stories • Mrs. W. J. Hays
... disorderly brain? Was he very miserable; had he perhaps sunk into a stupor of debauchery? And the old feeling of protectiveness rose up in him; a warmth born of long ago Christmas Eves, when they had stockings hung out in the night stuffed by a Santa Claus, whose hand never failed to tuck them up, whose kiss was their nightly waft ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Working for another, he neglected nothing. Meeting emergencies, tricking creditors and debtors, and massacring competitors were not in his line; but when it came to adding up columns of figures all day, making out bills, drawing checks for somebody else to sign, and the Santa Claus function of stuffing the pay-roll into the little envelopes—Eddie was there. Shrewd old Jabez recognized this. He tried him on a difficult collection once—sent him forth to pry an ancient debt of eighteen dollars and thirty-four cents ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... seen a Ku Klux. Bad Ku Klux sound sorter like good Santa Claus. I heard 'em say it was real. ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... to go too fast," said the man, smiling down at the White Rocking Horse as he patted its neck, "My son Dick is too small to ride even a rocking horse very fast. I think, though, that I will have Santa Claus bring him this one. And, as it is so near Christmas, and as you are so very busy, if you will have this wrapped up for me, I will take it home in my auto. I will ...
— The Story of a White Rocking Horse • Laura Lee Hope
... as close to the pits as he could get. He was a chubby, red-faced little man, and he beamed at me as if he were Santa Claus. "Mr. Carboy," he said in a voice that needed roughage badly. "I'm so glad you're here. I'm sure you'll be able to do something about ...
— The Man Who Played to Lose • Laurence Mark Janifer
... of crowded streets, of shops decorated with holly and mistletoe, of churches with little candle-lit Nativities, of Christmas-trees at home laden with fairy lamps and presents, of children sitting up late to dance and laugh and then hanging up their stockings before going to bed to dream of Santa Claus, of church bells ringing for midnight mass, and, last of all, of the "waits" by the old cross in the market-place in the midst of the ...
— The Drama Of Three Hundred & Sixty-Five Days - Scenes In The Great War - 1915 • Hall Caine
... Santa Claus's Postman! I heard him singing low Among the trees beyond the hill, And through the valley dark and still, Where frozen rushes grow. And cosy 'neath my counterpane I listened as he sang, While miles, and miles, and miles away I heard him cross the marshes grey, Till close ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... had hung my stocking, I lay awake a long time, pretending to be asleep and keeping alert to see what Santa Claus would do when he came. At last I fell asleep with a new doll and a white bear in my arms. Next morning it was I who waked the whole family with my first "Merry Christmas!" I found surprises, not in the stocking ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... no common Chris'mas—I tell ye," Aunt Deel went on. "Santa Claus won't git here short o' noon ...
— The Light in the Clearing • Irving Bacheller |
