CHRISTMAS, TO-DAY, AND YESTERDAY

Evening Star, Issue 20982, 22 December 1931, Page 3

CHRISTMAS, TO-DAY, AND YESTERDAY

By G. H. Bkiekley,

OBSERVANCES ALTER, BUT THE SPIRIT CHANGES NOT

“ Christmas was close at hand, in all his bluff and hearty honesty; it was the season of hopitality, merriment, and open-heartedness. . , . Gay and merry was the time. . . Dickens.

, “ Christmas is not what it used to be.” That is what some “ old fogey” will tell you. Of course it is not. We live in a world of change—of rapid, often of startling, change; and in very many respects to-day is different from yesterday. Wo change in habits, practices, customs, outlook. We are required to reconcile ourselves to altered and altering social circumstances, and wo are obliged to shed convictions and •predilections.' Sentiment is diminishing, and that which I may term matter-of-factism is supplanting it. Materialism has no room for sentimentality, and as the love of wealth, of luxury, enjoyment, and ease, increases, and as the world becomes increasingly mechanised human nature is inevitably bound to lose its softer element. The invention and rapid development of the automobile the aeroplane, wireless telephony, and the Cinematograph have done much to lessen the present generation’s love for the old, and to prompt in the young indifference to, if not disrespect for, that which stirred the

hearts and quickened the pulses of their grandparents. Yet if Christmas to-day is not what it used to be its prime difference from tlie Christmases of, say, fifty years ago is a difference in observance. The new Christmas is still the old Christmas—in spirit. It has not lost its place as the greatest of the year’s festivals—the Church’s festival, the festival of the home, of reunion, of love, of friendship,- of feasting of jollity, of giving, of receiving,'of charity, and, above all, the children’s festival. It is at Christmas that the threads of love, stretching from land to land across the seas, agitated by the chords of the hearts of folk at home, send messages of affection to kindred, or hearty greetings to old friends; and that in the Mother Country, in every home into which Grim Poverty has not entered, there are evidences of appreciation of the foundation spirit of Christmas and of determination to enjoy Christmastide as it should bo enjoyed—soberly, merrily, happily, lovingly. It is meet, too, that the Christmas season should ■ be marked by generosity—not only by thoughts, but by deeds, for men and women—not, of course, forgetting the children— who have been less fortunate in life’s race than we have been. Christmas can never be what it should be, a festival in honour of Him whose Name it bears, if it is,spent selfishly, without thought and self-sacrifice for the sick, the maimed, the blind, and the poor and needy, and especially for the children in slums, as in hospitals or institutions. May this characteristic of the real Chritmas never be lost! In the home, Christmas, in the main, is still what it was—a time in which the common aim is to “ eat, drink, and be merry.” A festival is a feast as well as a joyful celebration, and it is a truism to write that to very many, young and old alike, feasting is a joy. It has always been so, and never more than at Christmas. There was a time

when the outstanding Christmas dish was boar’s head. The boar’s head in hand bring I With garlands gay and rosemary. I pray you all sing merrily. It is outside the home that declining sentiment has most affected tho festival of Christinas. Churches are still decorated, though not so lavishly as they were in days of old, and the Christmas morning services are enjoyed by a host of* people who would not regard tho day complete and satisfying if it did not include attendance at church. _ There was a time when church choirs, nightly for a week or two before Christmas and _ in tho morning of Christmas Day, visited all parts of the parish, or, in a town, the houses of members of the congregation, to sing carols. As a choir boy, I was one of several carolling parties, which might be regarded as descendants of the old-time waits. Some 'of them were accompanied by a small harmonium, others by a violin, cornet, or other instrument. Either we carried our own lanterns, or illumination was provided by lanterns suspended on long poles. ‘0 Come All Ye Faithful,’ ‘ Whilst Shepherds Watched Their Flocks by Night,’ ‘ Christians Awake,’ and other carols wo would sing until the early morning hours, and. if wo did not receive money from tho occupants of the house there and then, collectors for the party would call on the morrow. Carolling is not what it was, I am sorry to write—tho most numerous and persistent of carol “ singers ” torday are young pence cadgers—and carol parties are far fewer than they wore. Somewhat akin to carolling was Christmas “ mumming.” There arc rural areas where warbling maskers still gambol outside houses, but their “mumming” is but a ghost of tho practice which prevailed in my boyhood days. One mummer would represent St. George, another the dragon, others a Turk, a doctor, Oliver Cromwell, Beekebub, and so on, and

there would bo more or less creditable representations of a “drama.” “Mumming” was amusing .to botli “ actors ” and audiences. Almost gone, too, is stage “mumming ” —otherwise, pantomiming. There are still provincial cities and towns wherein pantomimes, based upon the old nursery stories or rhymes, are the principal form of Christmas entertainment outside the home, but the increasing sophistication of the young people is rapidly reducing the number Every theatre in London used to produce a Christmas pantomime; nowadays not more than two or three do so. Hugely did youngsters in my boyhood days enjoy a pantomime. How thrilled wore wo by the wonderful transformation ■ scene; how wo laughed at the antics of the clown, with his pockets revealing strings of sausages, and the whacking of the pantaloon; and how wo were charmed by the dancing of the harlequin and his columbine! In these days children have forsaken pantomime for “ pictures.” Another instance of changed, changing sentiment. In a number of other respects Christmas is not what it was. Outdoor customs and sports have disappeared; houses are not decorated with holly, ivy. and coloured paper chains and roses, as they were; the mistletoe, with its invitation to kissing beneath it —the parasite is no longer regarded as essential to kisses—is not hung in secluded spots as it was in my .young days; and Christmas cards are not so generally bought or specially printed for despatch.to relatives and Iriends, at homo and abroad, as they were oven a few years ago; whilst the habit of people who desire to relieve their dodestics of irksome Christmas duty or those lacking family ties, and decide to spend the season at the seaside, in hotel, hydro, or boarding house is increasing. Unchanged is tbo Christmas feasting and jollification and tbo spirit of good-will, and, to the regret of very many, bo it written, unchanged is the “Christmas boxes” custom!