WAR-TORN EUROPE REGAINS PRE-WAR CHRISTMAS MOOD

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27272, 24 December 1949, Page 7

WAR-TORN EUROPE REGAINS PRE-WAR CHRISTMAS MOOD

LONDON, Dec. 22. Christmas news stories this year are telling of the human side of things—of unusual, happy, or poignant ways in which people the world over will spend the coming week-end. Celebrations, even in war-torn Europe, are regaining something of their pre-war care-free mood with the shadow of austerity put aside, if not forgotten. .. This Christmas, the fourth after the war, emphasis on empty shops, scarcity of toys, soaring prices, and black market profiteers has faded a little. Instead, the cablegrams tell of small boys who wrote Father Christmas in America and in Norway—and got cowboy suits and Hans Andersen tales in return; 11 British scientists who will celebrate as best they can marooned on an ice-bound Antarctic island; and of a maimed American war veteran whom surgeons have enabled to walk and use his hands again this Christmas after five years in hospital. More than 5000 children in Britain, Canada, and the United States will by Christmas Day have received a letter from Father Christmas’s Copenhagen headquarters—the Tourist Association Building—where thousands of letters arrive a year, some addressed to “ Greenland.” A staff of English girls work in shifts sending replies to the letters and enclosing Hans Andersen fairy tales and a picture of Greenland. The Scene in Britain In Britain, in spite of continuing austerity, there will be few homes without traditional Christmas fare. The Empire’s larders, as well as those of the Continent, have supplied shipload after shipload of festive food—enough to provide a welcome change from workaday rations. In London, two famous circuses and several pantomimes will provide seasonal entertainment. Trafalgar Square is gay with an illuminated gift tree from Norway, and many famous West End stores have spread themselves with special Christmas displays and illuminations. France’s Difficulties

In France, this will be an expensive Christmas, although Paris shops are overflowing with festive goods and sweetmeats. Most French people are finding wages too low to cope with the high cost of presents, turkeys, and sweets. In Nuremburg, Germany, there was an echo of the war when 50 German children paraded at the famous toymaking town’s Christmas fair to protest at the sale of toy tanks, tin soldiers, and other “militaristic toys.” •In an endeavour to clear London’s heaviest Christmas mail, 100,000 men and women are working day and night. The mail is at least 10 per cent, heavier than last year, when 57.000,000 letters, 3,000,000 parcels. 900,000 registered letters, and 500,000 registered parcels were sorted.