GIVING OF PRESENTS

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 149, 21 December 1923, Page 12

GIVING OF PRESENTS

i THE CHILDREN'S SEASON. There are two elements about Christmas which can only be ignored by the shutting of eyes and ears—the presents and the children.. In Dickens, who is commonly supposed to have made the most and a little more of Christmas parties, the children are not of much I account. Mr. Fezziwig's ball was adult. The party ■of Scrooge's nephew was for j young men and maidens. Bob Ciatchit inevitably had his children to dinner. ! But nobody had any children at Dingley Dell. But now you can hardly think about Christmas without thinking of ' children. . : I You may regret it. You may wonder why you have any children, and still more sadly why.other people have. But unless you choose to be a hermit you I know very well that from children there is no escape. They will.own everybody and every place. The aged and the celir bate will barrow some for the occasion. There is something to be said for the habit of presents. It is, you will hardly deny, a mental and spiritual discipline. Consider the refining influence of a long and arduous struggle to find something which will not bore blase youth or annoy fastidious age. Reflect upon the moral stimulus of learning to receive with smiles of gratitude what you don't want from someone whom you abhor and for whom you have provided nothing. There can be no doubt, in any reasonable mind that Christmas makes for the improvement of our still imperfect nature, for the training of endurance of body and mind.