“Christmas at the Door” – A Children’s Poem by Margaret E. Sangster

The December 22, 1896 issue of Harper’s Round Table, a children’s magazine, included a poem by Margaret E. Sangster titled Christmas at the Door. In this post, I will re-print Christmas at the Door in its entirety along with the illustration that accompanied it in Harper’s Round Table.

I have covered several other poems by Sangster here at The New Leaf Journal. You will find those poems here. In the first of my articles on Sangster poems, I wrote a brief introduction to her life and work.

“Christmas at the Door” by Margaret E. Sangster (1896)

Here's Christmas at the door again!
      There's never a day so dear,
No one we are half so glad to see,
      In the course of the whole round year.

It isn't that Santa Claus comes back,
      And his hands with gifts are full;
It isn't that we have holidays,
      When we need not go to school.

But the air is thrilled with happiness,
     The crowds go up and down,
And people laugh and shout for joy
      When Christmas comes to town.

There's nobody left to stand outside,
      The world is bright with cheer,
For Christmas-time is the merriest time
      In the whole of the big round year.

We try to love our enemies now,
      And our friends we love the more,
That strife and anger fade away
      When Christmas taps at the door.