The Cheyenne Daily Leader

Preparing for Christmas.
Yesterday brought with it a snow storm, and moreover a wind storm, yet more ladies made their appearance on the streets of the city than had been seen in weeks before. They were making their Christmas purchases. Toward evening it seemed that all, men and women alike, who were met on the streets, were carrying home bundles of presents, as the results of their afternoon's shopping expedition. The stores were generally well patronized throughout the day, and in the evening many of them presented an animated appearance. The express wagons did a good business, and the cry of the expressman bearing a Christmas box was a welcome sound at many a door. The hotel dining rooms were decorated, and the guests generally did not forget the employes. At some of the hotels those boarders sitting regularly at the same table clubbed together and made their waiter a present, while others made the waiters gifts independently of the action of the rest. At the homes in the city, though comparatively few elaborate Christmas trees were prepared, there must have been hardly one where the children did not fare well, judging by the great number of presents sold at the stores and carried home by loving fathers and mothers to happy little ones.
Santa Claus.
Don't forget that to-day, away up somewhere in the Rockies, Santa Claus has loaded up his tricycle with a thousand and one Christmas presents for his numerous family of good children, and his prancing team of eight swift elk are impatient for a signal from their driver to course swiftly towards Cheyenne. Mountains, ditches, wire fence and houses are nothing to Santa Claus when he is looking up his good children on "the night before Christmas." He tears over everything with the swiftness of old Boreas himself. And strange to say, notwithstanding the very large pack of toys and other things on his back he can squeeze himself into a very small space and slide down a chimney flue as easily as soapsuds can go down through a sink. He generally lights on the floor with a bound, stops a minute to see whether all the young 'uns are asleep, and if he sees a pair of bright, wondering eyes looking at him, it puts him all out of heart and he debates in his mind whether he will "shell out" profusely or not. So, little one, to-night try and sleep soundly, dream all you can of Old Santa, and if you hear any noise in the neighborhood of where your stockings are, shut your eyes all the tighter. Santa Claus is a brick. He plays strange tricks with his presents. He gives every good girl or boy one or more presents. But what odd taste? Some get books, some he gives animals; then he takes a notion that this girl or boy, or that girl or boy ought to have candy. And such a variety! Why it is calculated to make one's head swim to think of the vast confectionery shop he must run, away down in his underground apartments. Then think what an immense toy manufactory he must oversee, and what queer creatures those dwarfish little workmen must be, none of whom are said to be over two and a half feet high, all of them wearing goggles, resting on snub noses. No better man than Santa Claus ever lived. To be sure he is old, but he never grows older. For 1,800 years he has been the same old Santa. Then what a benevolent looking countenance? Where did he come from? What made him love children? Why does he devote all his time—the whole year round—to getting up things that he knows will make his thousands and tens of thousands of children happy? Again, we say, Santa Claus is a brick, a good institution and nothing pleases him better than ten or a dozen of stockings hanging in a row. For further information ask papa and mamma.