CHRISTMAS FEELING

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 75, 21 December 1928, Page 6

CHRISTMAS FEELING

A SUBTLE INFLUENCE MAKING ITSELF MANIFEST That Christmas feeling! Willy-nilly it comes along at the year-end, assaulting one’s heart and pocket; forcing one to think of all the nice things one would like to give friends and relatives; compelling one to dawdle in front of tempting shop windows, tantalisingly packed with all those dainty desirable articles which one feels should really belong to someone one loves; and urging one to think of the little ones, with all their fond beliefs in the deliciously impossible. As a rule the sum total of this Christmas experience means a drift into this and that shop, amassing a collection of parcels with which one feels almost ashamed to be seen. But when others are seen similarly overladen, the temporary inconvenience is more than balanced by the anticipatory joy of giving. This subtle influence in the air has been manifesting itself to an extraordinary extent this week. All the emporiums that flank the long avenues of retail trade in Wellington have been doing a brisk trade, and the feeling generally is that it is going to be a great Christmas. “If only the- rain would hold off things would be bully,” said one shopkeeper, as he gloomily viewed the prospect during a heavy shower yesterday afternoon. “It is all very well to say that people who do not buy today will do so to-morrow,” he continued. “It is a bit of a fallacy. That only happens up to a point. Rain, accompanied by, a cold snap, buttons up the pockets. Sunshine and blue sky form the only key that opens them. Take Friday nights—the late nightwet weather means the loss of thousands of pounds to shopkeepers. After all, people are made sensitively temperamental by the weather. You buy or you don’t buy, according to the weather very largely. So what we want is fine weather between now and next Tuesday. If we get it the returns are sure; if not, we will have to grin and bear it. Anyhow, it’s better than Soviet Russia. Fancy them trying to kill Christmas! What a dull old world it would be without it. Well, good-bye, and a Merry Christmas! . . . Yes, Madam, the doll counter is on the left.”