CHRISTMAS GIFTS

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28451, 4 December 1957, Page 2

CHRISTMAS GIFTS

Significance In Festival

Everyone wanted to bring joy to someone close to them at Christmas and to do this they should give that person a token of symbolic thought, said the Dean of Christchurch (the Very Rev. Martin Sullivan), speaking at a Christmas party held by the Canterbury Travel Club, yesterday afternoon.

"May I suggest you concentrate on your husband,” he said. "Give him something with a little thought and preparation behind it.”

The wrong gift or a useless gift was not so much a betrayal of the receiver, but a revelation of the giver. "If you give your husband the wrong gift it means you do not really know him.” True symbols were signs of achieved ideals; symbolic tokens gave meaning and significance to the season.

The Dean reminded his audience that if they let Christmas pass without honouring their religious obligations they would miss the real meaning of the festival.

Cheque For Children Earlier in the afternoon the president (Sir Joseph Ward) handed the Dean a cheque from the club for £lO 10s for the Save the Children Fund. This would be translated into bringing Joy to children in devastated countries, the Dean said.

Every year a Christmas tree is set up in the Christchurch Cathedral and gifts placed on it are distributed overseas through the Save the Children Fund. “It is a useful thing to do because it has taught a tremendous number of children in Christchurch and throughout Canterbury that it is a tree to which they give something and take nothing.” he said. “I would much prefer to see a child give something he was not quite ready to give away—something he still wanted—rather than see him place a gift at the foot of the tree which he had bought in a shop on the way to the cathedral.” Monetary contributions for the tree were also welcomed. These went towards the maintenance of a bed at the Hermagor Rehabilitation Centre. Austria. "This year we hope to send money to some of the Korean children who are amputees and cannot play with toys, and to children in Burma,” the Dean said.