How I Like to Spend Christmas.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 3406, 23 December 1911, Page 2 (Supplement)

How I Like to Spend Christmas.

.. SOME INTERESTING OPINIONS. I LOVE CHILDREN. (By Sir William Tre'ioar.) Ancl the alderman knight of the City of London shows his love by giving Christmas hampers to as many London mites as possible. My ideal Christmas Day is one in which I should be surrounded by bright, happy children, who are not old enough to have known ally serious sorrow. This is the dream of a “Merry Christmas,’’ hut alas, it cannot always be the reality. ( The actual Christmas day to many of us is (if we are luck and fortunate) a time of peaceful remembrance, sometimes the day for tine making up of old quarrels, the coining to-

gether cf relatives who do not often meet. . But the ideal day is the one in which bright, joyous children should be. the predominant partneis. Then wc elders try, and perhaps succeed, in being really happy, jolly, and merry, all for the sake of the child-ren—-Cod bless them ! THE IDEAL—"GOLF.'' (By Lewis Waller.) The famous actor has no doubt about the happiest Christmas. You ask me —How do I like to spend Christmas? I answer —Golfing by the sea. WHAT THE TERRYS THINK(By Marion and Fred Terry.) Clearly proving the devotion of the great actor-family to children. I like to spend Christmas with any number of children. To me tins is a great happiness. How should Christmas be spent ? With children, of course! GO ABOUT SMILING. (By H. G. Wells.) The. man with a greater imagination than anyone else. Yet lie is not above descending to enjoy Christmas festivities. Christmas is an institution for children and childish, people, and the only way to spend it is childishly, and is possible, with children. To give, and go about sinilnig, is not bad fun once in awhile. But if you cannot do that, then don’t spend your Christmas at all—bury it—and go on with your business. TRY A SLEEPING DRAUGHT. (By Lady Colin Campbell.) That Christmas does not agree with everyone is the belief of the famous writer and critic. I regret to say that I should prefer not to spend Christmas at all, and think that a strong sleeping draught, warranted to keep going for at least forty-eight hours, is the only thing that could possible insure an “Ideal Christmas Day.” By the way, I think there are many people who would endorse my opinion. CHRISTMAS IN MID-AIR. (By Tire Rev. J. M. Bacon.) The intrepid, balloonist believes in the family circle, hut likes freedom. So long as Christmas unite© the home circle, as far as this may be possible, I care little whether it be spent at home. Let it find me, as

it lias done, on a distant voyage, or in mid-air, or where holly and puddings are not. But, above all, let it be as free as may be from business, and the tax of obsolete customs/ which render any ideal festive season even harder to find. WHO AGREES ? (By Morley Roberts.) A novelist summarily disposes of the Christmas question in a way that some of us may echo in our heart of hearts. I like to spend Christmas all by myself in a country that does not keep it. A SOLDIER’S VIEW. (By Major-General Sir Henry Colviue, • K.C.M.G.). The lif.t his honors and appointments, his campaigns and commandls, is a long

one, stretching back to the day lie entered the Grenadiers in 1870. He holds up "the highest Christmas ideal in a beautiful sentence, I am afraid my views are more negative than positive. Ido not like to spend Christmas in writing cheques, or in causing indigestion vrmi the help of a plum : pudiding, or in gathering chilblains in tlie snow, or 1 looking at shuttered shop windows in London; and I generally try to go. somewhere ...where I can avoid all those things. On the whole, I think tho place and circumstances chosen by the Three Kings on the first Christmas of all were as nearly ideal as one can hope for ; in the desert, under the stars, and! with companions having the same hopes and aspirations. PEACE AND GOODWILL. (By Lord Brassey.) This hard worker and deep tliinker whoso recreation is to sail the renowned

vaclit Sunbeam) has a wise word to say 011 Christmas. I love to spend Christ max? wi those who are nearest and clearest to me. I love to gather t-lie young ones comiiio- on under any roof. It is happiness to see them growing m wisdom and stature from year to year. I think of the old friends, and very specially of many whom now I seldom 1 see, but do not love the less. Christmas is the time of peace and goodwill to all. GAY AND GRAVE. (By G. B. Burgin.) The talented writer, whose works so often remind us of Dickens, holds up quite a Dickensian ideal. I would breakfast at ten, stroll through the leafless wood until lunch,

help with the Christmas tree in the afternoon, meet a few chosen friends at dinner, which should be eaten to the strains of sweet music, full of “dying falls.” In the evening there should be a dance and open house for all poor wanderers, soldiers of fortune, a bounteous meal, a seat to rest them in the ingle nook. When mirth and music were at. their height, when young lovers whispered of the happy days to oome, I would hie to my closet, call back the touch of vanished hands, hear voices for ever silent. Then, “Sir Roger, the

Waits,” and so, as Pepvs hath it, ‘‘to bed with grateful heart.” IF I WERE RICH. (By John Strange Winter.) The kindly author of “Bootle’s Baby” and some seventy other books discusses possibilities—“with a lot of money!” I have never been able to spend Christmas as I would like. My ideal would be to have a lot of money to spend —to be able to give all dear.oiies and a good many friends just the things that, they are aching to., have. „ I would like to give a little dinner of my own to the postmen who bring my letters, the police of my district, and the drivers and conductors of the ’buses I often use, and to take

them to a theatre afterwards. I would like to. give a. dance to the older children,' and a big partv with a Christmas tree liung with lovely things to the youngsters. There are always in one’s knowledge some old people and little people who are poor and neglected at Christmas, and I would take great pleasure in making them warm and comfy at this season—and, after that, I think I might be forgiven if I took wings in the early year and hied me to a place of sunshine. What do you think? But all this would take a lot of money! CHRISTMAS AS A DANCING BEAR. (By S. R. Crockett.) The creator of “The Stickif Minister” is devoted to children, mountaineering, and golf. The ideal mode of spending Chrifit- ‘ mas to me is to get together as many children as you can collect —to be their slave, servitor, dancing bear, general servant; to bo “do ridin’ hoss of de rabbit family”; to make as great a donkey of yourself as possible for their sake ;to buy them “candies and goodies” till their teeth ache; and generally to efface yourself and your dignity in order to gain and wear (liko the Cross of the Legion of Honor) the proud title of “The best uncle that ever was.” A WORD FROM THE WISE. (By Dr. Richard Garnett.) The most learned professor, one-time Keeper of Printed Books in the British Museum, and author of many wise and witty works, holds that Christmas is meant to be enjoyed—in different ways. The fashion of keeping Christmas depends much upon the place whore it is kept. For the dwellers in country mansions nothing can be better than the ideal of the Rev. Dr. Opimian; “I like the Yule log; the festoons of holly 011 the walls and windows; the dance under the mistletoe; the gigantic sausage; the baron of beef; the vast globe of plum-pudding; the tapping of the old October ; the inexhaustible bowl of punch.” Dwellers in towns must try to find a medium between Dr. Opimian and ,Ja< k Horner, remembering that .Jaes mi 1 ! be a better boy still if he puts -I,llc plum into his sister’s mouth instead o f hLs own. TH E OLD-FASH ID NED WA Y. (By Louis N. Pariier.) Composer and dramatist. He holds j high ideals, as is proved by his many charming plays and—ibis .'eric:. 1 like Christinas at home, with my family and my intimates; with old familiar faces; with roust tuikev and plum pudding, and a glass or so of old wine; with simple laughter and cheerful song; with childish, old, round games, and weird old ghost stories; with heaps of presents given and received; with messages of goodwill from friends here and abroad;

with balm of old wounds, and the healing of old feuds; with kind thoughts of the absent and the dead; with pleasant memories of past days, and good hope of the Future. An old-fashioned way, if you please, but—is there a better? GIVE ME SUN. (By Douglas Sladen.) Traveller, author, curio collector, friend of Japan, and sun-worshipper. I like to pass Christmas Day in some sunshiny place- like Palermo, surrounded by njy home circle and a few' of my favorite friends. I don’t think 1 ever enjoyed any Christmas so much' a 6 the one I spent in Japan. The English there kept it up in great style, using all sorts of quaint native decorations. And the Japanese, wlio make a great thing of the New Year and have obligingly altered their New Year’s Day to the European date, are still further obliging enough to put up their New Year’s decorations in time to grace the foreigner’s Christmas. So we had a very happy tame. MY HIGHEST IDEAL. • (By Arthur Morrison.) The author of “The Child of the Jago” has a happy inspiration. Hitherto, unfortunately, my Christmas pursuits seem to have been dictated, by cireumsrimces laud persons) that have left 1 e no choice But, if every restraint o c custom and circumstance could he r-•moved, I feel that Christinas (which 1 understand to be a strict ’ Bank Holiday) spent unostentatiously m the vaults of the Bank of England, v ith the society of the wheelbarrow and a, shovel, would afford an ideal worthy of my highest aspirations. IN THE GAYEST PLACE IN EUROPE. (By William Le Quex.) A novelist who has seen too muck of life abroad to be wholly enamored! by old English customs. I feel I am too iuucli a cosmopolitan to appreciate the indigestions of English Christmas fare. Although a lover of my English homo, I prefer to spend Christmas sitting in the winter sunshine before the Cafe do Paris at Monte Carlo and watching the life and movement of the gayest little square in Europe. But there is, alas! nothing in the Principality to remind one of Noel, save, perhaps the “plom-pudding” at the Metropole.