CHRISTMAS EVE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20290, 24 December 1927, Page 12

CHRISTMAS EVE.

OBSERVANCE IN DUNEDIN. FINE WEATHER BRINGS THE CROWDS. A HAPPY EVENING. Soon the merry bells of Christmas will peal out once more, singing in the Southern Hemisphere a sung _of warm nights and lung evenings ; in England an icy melody of snow and sleet and roaming (ires —a traditional English Christmas that wakens to realism the legend of Good King Wenceslas and his page who fared forth into the night “ when the snow lay round about, deep and and even. But all the world over, whether the weather is hot or cold, there are the same preparations for Yuletide, and the streets are thronged with Christmas shoppers. Here in iNew Zealand the Christ mas rush culminated last nigh', whicn was, officially and commercially, Christmas Eve, although Christmas Day (officially speaking again) is not until Monday. Actually it is to-morrow, but that being a Sunday the holiday will be held the following day. Business in Dunedin was quite as Drisk last evening as it has been in previous years—indeed the streets seemed to oe even more crowded, for the night was warm and calm; just the sort of night for seeing the sights and buying presents. It was an orderly crowd that went on its business quietly enough. In the darkei streets a few carousers were to be seen, while here and there a festive youHi would fling a cracker at the feet of a passing lass, and fall into transports of joy on hearing the inevitable scream. There was, on the whole, a marked absence of fireworks, which many people, no doubt, will regard as a satisfactory augury for future Christmas Eves. Fireworks in the crowded streets are not popular. Hydrogen balloons were in evidence everywhere, and added to the Christmas atmos phere. Indeed, the only sombre note was a group of six evangelistic gentlemen who, having stationed themselves in a row in the Octagon, held aloft placards bearing words of warning to th*> unrepentem. A little aftei 10 o’clock the crowds began to dwindle and the trams carried heavy loads suburbanwards up till 11 o’clock. It was, on the whole, a very successful Christmas Eve, especially from the business point of view.