SANTA IN MUFTI

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 304, 23 December 1944, Page 6

SANTA IN MUFTI

IT'S IN THE AIR

THAT CERTAIN FEELING

Even war is not proof against Santa and his reindeer.

Through weeks the city has been busy. Shops have been humming with business. Shop assistants have been wiping the perspiration from their brows. "It's hot weather," they have been saying politely, and under their breaths they have been murmuring "Let it finish soon." And they mean the humid weather, the crowds; the frenzied buying, the crush and bother of the day—the Christmas feeling of work and more work, and politeness and more politeness, the indecision, the procrastination, and worried looks of customers, the explaining,- the excusing, the searching of stocks, war restricted. ' Then it came, Friday, December 23, the nearest thing to Christmas Eve, as the good old days knew it— the good old days of pre-war, preshortages, pre-everything that we know to-day. Suddenly, without warning, the rush, the worried looks, the buying took on a meaning. Faces became brighter, steps hurried, the jostling and crush of the streets was accepted. Even the heat. Strange to say, Christmas had arrived. Another War Christmas Christmas. Another war Christmas, but still Christmas. The time when strangers say to one another "Happy Christmas" and feel sentimental, and strangely at one with the world, even a fighting world. Through all day yesterday there was a turmoil in the city. People rubbed shoulders, bumped into one another, smiled at people they had never seen before, shook hands with acquaintances in unaccustomed warmth, and dashed on in pursuit ] of the things of Christmas. Taxis strove mightily to keep pace with the demand, honked their horns, and almost gave up the ghost lin the mid-afternoon, when people i took just no notice at all of moving j vehicles and stretched in an unending line from one end of Queen Street to the other, intersections and all, and would not move for Santa himself. It would have taken his reindeer and his harnessed sled with accompanying snow to attract attention from those faces and moving limbs, preoccupied with Christmas and things thereof. Night brought no cessation to the Christmas rush . . . the last roundup. Some shops stayed open until 10 p.m., %nd the people stayed until later than that. The Jjast Round-up All transport was packed. At a premium through the past five years, almost non-existent in some periods it seemed, the taxis were again a centre of demand, with a shortage of supply. Taximen, deputed to be organisers of traffic at the various major stands, were inundated with a crowd of parcel-loaded people— Santas in mufti—waiting to be transported home. Unaccustomed as they were to public speaking, they did a lot of it. And it was mostly, "Please, can't you take a tram." But nobody listened. The taxis did a roaring trade. But then, so has everybody. The shops had more goods, the" people had more money—and, it's an even bet that the children will have more toys this Christmas than they have had in any Christmas in a long, long time. To-day was strangely quiet. But only on the surface. There were even "types" (the Air Force will excuse, please) who had been drinking this Christmas. Tut, tut.