APPROACH OF CHRISTMAS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18891, 13 December 1924, Page 12

APPROACH OF CHRISTMAS

THE PASSING CROWD.

SCENES IN QUEEN STREET.

ALLURING SHOP WINDOWS.

Assurance of a bright and prosperous Christmas is contained in the heartening spectacle of a city already rapidly filling with holiday makers and shoppers. For days past, the stage has been set alluringly for the Yuletide pageant; brilliant stinshine and a tang of summer warmth brought thousands of citizens into Auckland's main shopping thoroughfares yesterday. A hearty young breeze, sweeping over the newly-filled trenches in the middle of Queen Street pavements, raised clouds of dust that brought, momentary annoyance to the crowding pedestrians, but there was sufficient blue in the sky and gold in the sunshine to raise the heart above the dust-clouds, and that indefinable yet readily-perceptible feeling of Cfiristmas goodwill was made manifest in the midst of the throng.

Outside the popular shopping emporiums Btretched lines of motor-cars waiting to bear fair shoppers homo after the ardours of tho afternoon; in the city's spacious tea-rooms they gathered like flocks of bright birds in their pretty summer frocks. Never have fashions been more becoming, nor colours brighter than they are this summer. True, a few of the frocks seem to be designed rather more on the lines of bathing suits than Queen Street hitherto has witnessed, but tho results in some cases justify this latest of fashion's freakishne33. In other cases, it would have been far better had kindly art come to the assistance of nature, but beauty, after all, is in the eye of the beholder, and where the mass effect is good, 'twere churlish to carp at the odd excep,tion.

The shop windows are more alluring this year than for many a summer past. The daintiest, of gift articles are displayed in all their beauty, and a very tight clutch must needs be kept on the purse strings these days if there are to be pennies left for the bairns on Christmas Eve. Temptation lurks in every windo-v, and it would take a very stony heart, coupled with a very thin purse, to essay to walk down a mile of shop-fronts these days with never a longing glance aside. The toy departments, of course, are the most aljuring of all to the small people who tug at their mothers' hands these sunny afternoons of marvel and delight. Tinsel and glitter, climbing monkeys, floating ducks,' tiny motor-cars, gigantic "teddies. ' and things that seem more than half alive, fearsome lions and camels and monkeys, that look as though they had just stepped out of jungle or Ark, things with rolling eyes and clicking jaws and ■wagging tails that call forth yelps and squeals of delight from pop-eyed youngsters on the other side of the glass. In the booksellers' shops are the choicest of Christmas gifts of cards, calendars, books galore, and who shall speak of the jewellery that glitters in the afternoon Bunshine, of the soft and beautiful garments that are a snare to the feet and a joy to the eye, of the gifts of china, of Bparkling glassware, of mountains of delectable sweets, of Christmas hams, bonbons, and dainties for the Christmas dinner ? In all these things the spirit of Christmas abounds. It takes tangible shape in the venerable figures t r iat march sedately up and down outside the toy shops, who no doubt swelter beneath their gaudy trappings, and feel again that criclc in the neck, as they bend the ear to catch the whispered confidence of wide-eyed infants.

And so i.ho gay pageant moves on and on. Inside the shops the assistants are coping with the first of the Christmas rush. A spirit of confidence seems to prevail for the most part. The booksellers Btafe that the season is late, that business • is dragging inexplicably, but the drapers, fancy goods and provision merchants say that all's well with the world, that trade is well up to last year's mark, that when the farmers' wool chenuet begin to be cashed, things are going to boom. The loss of trade experienced through Wednesday's persistent rain has probably made a difference to many thousands in the total turn-over for the week, so that the fact of tnsde having reached its present level, despite this net-back, is taken as a good augury for a Christmas of solid prosperi.ty.