CHRISTMAS GIFTS

Evening Post, Volume CII, Issue 151, 23 December 1921, Page 13

CHRISTMAS GIFTS

• l' —r^ — •'■■ MEMORIES OF OTHER DAYS NEW IDEAS, NEW PRESENTS. It is not true, as reported, that the only advancement to be noted relates to the status of the minister's son. Formerly, he grew up to steal horses, and now he grows up to steal, Fords. The sons of preachers are not the only ones who have moved upward and onward. The deathbed movie is a daily ration, whereas,, of old, the small town waited t months for a repertory company that f ea- , tured "East Lynne" and gave away a : silver water pitcher on Saturday night. The cottage organ, touched by the asthma, has disappeared, even as the bison and the Paisley shawl and the paper collar have gone. The noises of the talking machine now overlap, so that on a quiet evening, with < the windows open, the whole countryside is compactly overlaid with squealing melodies. The girls hida their ears and expose their wish bones, in accordance with the most recent hints from Paris,' and the humblest farmhand ■ insists upon being measured for a suit that will make him look like a Yale student. In the midst of these kaleidoscopic, not to say cataclysmic, changes, the . oldfashioned Christmas has had a few things done to it. The bobsled no longer appeals to the imagination of a community accustomed to taking its rides in airplanes. When children of four, and five smile (knowingly) at mention of the stork, what chance has the local hardware man to palm himself off as a real Santa Claus merely by looping a set of unconvincing whiskers over his ears? The cantata has gone cold. All the little ones are watching the papers; for dope on the Doug. Fairbanks and Buster Keaton releases. And the carol must syncopate itself or lose out. Back in the good old days Christmas brought with it a mild orgy of present giving. . '■: ' ... .■'■■'.'■', \ Slippers to the minister and a copy of Will Carleton's poems ito. the teacher of the Bible class!. ' Sometimes I pause and wonder if the moustache cup is still extant, or whether

it has gone to join the velvet vest and the box-toed boots.

Does anyone here remember the cardboard motto? Or, coming along to the later Crustacean period, the workbox with a hot poker design on the outside! Or the monogram Bat-lining of puckered silk, suggesting a child's coffin, as Abe Martin says? . .'■ i,'.'■.,'■■'-■■•''■ The crayon portrait of a deceased relative was considered quite it. And it is only.fair to add that any relative done in crayon always looks deceased. Among those who made a luxury of grief there was an abiding fondness for the watch-chain made of human hair. The'departed would be clipped just before being folded into the casket. The| strands, of hair would be woven into an intricate rope design, and this would be presented to the widower on Christmas morning, just as a start-off to a jolly day. On Christmas Eve, from an evergreen tree, festooned with popcorn and tinsel, there descended a crop of, knitted and crocheted sundries—mittens, caps, earbobs, wristlets, comforters, and noods— which you could not get on a juvenile to-day unless four or five people held him. . ' . ■/■; ;• , A pair of "rocker", skates, with 'a •crew attachment to^be twisted' into the heel and heavy wooden foundation, satisfied all the yearnings and made all the dreams come true. Probably the children of to-day would go on strike if Christmas brought them only stick'pndy, Brazil nuts; and ten-' cent toys. YMost certainly the scheming lover can win no home for himself in 1920 by the help of a shiny celluloid "toilet set" on a base of red plush. The toy store of to-day looks like Machinery Hall at a World's" Fair. And the candidate who expects to score, had better select something which includes radium, platinum, gold, and' precious stones. When the tots kneel down and pray for limousines, it may be announced to the world that the old-fashioned Christmas is in the past tense.—By George Ade (adapted).