CHRISTMAS HAS CHANGED

Evening Star, Issue 23143, 17 December 1938, Page 1

CHRISTMAS HAS CHANGED

AN OLD-TIMER SPEAKS SUCKING PIGS AND FERN FRONDS “ Somehow or other Christmas has changed.” The speaker’s hair, turning from iron grey to white, entitled him to speak, at all events, with the authority, of years (says the ‘ Dominion’). He was remembering many Christmases, and those memories made him rather wmtful, as he sat in a tramway waiting shed. “Well, when I was a lad, some 60 years ago,” he said, “ the shops did not start to look like Christmas S month or six weeks before December 25. Shopkeepers did not get showing fancy things in their windows and on the shelves inside till Christmas week, three or four days before Christmas Eve. I don’t know why that was. i suppose that one of the reasons was that they used to use palms and fronds of ferns from the bush to decorate their shop fronts, specially the food shops—* the butchers, the bakers, and the grocers. “1 can remember old Cuba street looking almost like an avenue in the bush, with great boughs of trees and punga ferns tied to the veranda posts all the way up. These did not last fresh very long, so that usually they made their appearance only two days before Christmas Eve. Indeed, soma of them used to leave it till the day itself. Drayloads of ferns used to be brought into town from the Wadestown bush or the Hutt and sold to tha shopkeepers almost for the mere cost of the job. HALF A SHEEP FOR ss. “ Another reason why the Christmas season could not be spread out Like it is to-day was the kind of. food displayed,” said the commentator. “ Sea that window over there P What is it full ofp Hams. There were hams in the old days, but the pride of every butcher’s shop then were the sucking pigs, rows of them—meat that used to melt in the month I I don’t see any sucking pigs to-day. I always agreed with the fellow who wrote the famous essay on roast pig. There’s no taste like it in the world. Turkeys, too, were common at Christmas time. It is a long time since I have seen a turkey in a shop in Wellington. I don’t suppose they breed ’em now. They wera great eating, too, when not too old. Of course, there was always lamb. I can’t: remember ths time that we did not have lamb; but it was much , cheaper than it is to-day. We could buy half a sheep for 5s in those days. “Toys—well the choicd was limited in those days, but I don’t believe it .made any difference to, thp joy. ef ,thh chib Boys were'given bats and balls and tin trumpets and the little girls their dolls. I think they wera just as happy as when they get ad these modern gee-gaws. A goon l many of our toys were home-made. Thera used to be wood turners who would turn out Jemima dolls that used to last the whole year, and those funny dolls with painted faces were every bit as dear to the little ones as the elabo4 rate things they give ’em to-day; ■“Then we used to have the carols, *5 said the old man. “ I can remember when the boys of St. Paul’s, and St* Peter’s used to go around on Christmas Eve to certain residences singing the old carols very sweetly, end noli bothering about collecting- money either. They simply did it for tha love of _ it. ; Of course,- they used to get their cake and raspberry drink. “ It seems to me the whole business of Christmas has been commercialised, ... It was never intended to he that, . . . Ah, well, a merry Christmas to you! ”