Excerpt from The Stranger's Gift: A Christmas and New Year's Present It is probably known to many of my readers, that in Germany. Christmas time is rendered peculiarly interesting and delightful, by the combination of many religious and social blessings and enjoyments; that almost every family has its Christmas tree covered with a hundred lights and many beautiful gifts, and surrounded generally by a little group of happy beings, and that friends and neighbors with holy rapture then remind each other of the blessed tidings that "the Saviour is born." These and many similar customs which have been handed down from antiquity, and preserved by the kindly disposition of the people, are probably generally known; but only he whose childhood has been passed in Germany, can know how fondly the heart loves to dwell again and again on these successive celebrations. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.