Wairarapa Daily Times [Established Over 50 Years.] SATURDAY, DECEMBER 24, 1927. CHRISTMAS.

Wairarapa Daily Times, 24 December 1927, Page 4

Wairarapa Daily Times [Established Over 50 Years.] SATURDAY, DECEMBER 24, 1927. CHRISTMAS.

Christmas, pre-eminently the festival of the home and the family, is with us once again. There are few to whom Christmas does not mean something. Christmas stands apart, a red-letter day of pious and joyful associations, in how many languages are the greetings of the season exchanged/ In how many homes is some special effort made to mark out this day from all others? The years grow into centuries; empires rise and fall; the earth we dwell in is transformed, but ever Christmas claims its due. Different nations have different fashions of commemorating Christmas, but none do it with more whole-hearted zest than the British. The British Christmas is a tradition. Jt is synonymous with good fellowship and good cheer, happy re-unions and merrymaking. We in. New Zealand ha ye inherited that excellent tradition. It is proverbial that those of British stock carry their Christmas habits with them wherever they go. In the Arctic or in the tropics, on the high seas or in the arid desert, the bill of fare is identical, provided that conditions permit. No regard is paid to digestions. Christmas is observed in the good old English manner. We New Zealanders often say of ourselves that it is ridiculous to adhere to the conventional Christmas menu. Christmas with us falls in midsummer, when appeties are jaded and light fare is desirable. Yet we persist in regaling ourselves with roast beef and turkey, and all the concomitants of the Christmas board, which, though well adapted to stay the inner man in an English winter, are provender quite unsuitable for a December day in New Zealand. Somehow, where Christmas is concerned, the ordinary rules of logic do not apply. Neither do those of health. Along with the British fondness for Christmas cheer we have inherited the higher things, the spirit of goodwill, the cordiality. the desire to give happiness, which are in the air at this period of the year. It was always said of Charles Dickens, who, by his writings, immortalised the British Christmas, that he knew how to keep Christmas if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that he truly said of us, and all of us! And so. as Tiny Tim observed. at that Christinas gathering Dickens has described so well,

“GOD BLESS US, EVERYONE.”