What do you think my grandmother said,
Telling Christmas stories to me
To-night, when I went and coaxed and coaxed
With my head and arms upon her knee?
She thinks—she really told me so—
That good Mr. Santa Claus, long ago,
Was as old and grey as he is to-day,
Going around with his loaded sleigh.
She thinks he’s driven through frost and snow
For a hundred, yes, a thousand times or so,
With jingling bells and a bag of toys—
Ho, ho! for good girls and boys,
With a carol gay,
Crying, “Clear the way,
For a rollicking, merry Christmas day!”
Grandmother knows almost everything—
All that I ask her she can tell;
Rivers and towns in geography,
And the hardest words she can always spell.
But the wisest ones, sometimes, they say,
Mistake—and even grandmother may.
If Santa Claus never had been a boy
How would he always know so well
What all the boys are longing for
On Christmas day? Can grandmother tell?
Why does he take the shiny rings,
The baby houses, the dolls with curls,
The little lockets and other such things
Never to boys, but always to girls?
Why does he take the skates and all
The bats and balls, and arrows and bows,
And trumpets and drums, and guns—hurrah!
To the boys? I wonder if grandmother knows?
But there’s one thing that doesn’t seem right—
If Santa Claus was a boy at play
And hung up his stocking on Christmas night,
Who filled it for him on Christmas day?