SOME CHRISTMAS HINTS.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume VIII, Issue 50, 12 December 1891, Page 690

SOME CHRISTMAS HINTS.

IST three days till Christmas, and Lily Brown and I are having such fun getting ready ! %SaHU I was over at s and we g°t to talking ■ about Christmas, and wondering what we would H et this year, and telling each other what we would like to get, and I suppose we became excited and talked pretty loud, for Lily’s brother Ned, who was studying in his room across the hall from us, called out, ‘ Girls, did you never hear that it is more blessed to give than receive ? Why don’t you talk about what you are going to give this Christmas Now, I am ten years old and so is Idly, and when we came to think about it we felt ashamed that we have had so much experience in receiving and so little in giving. And so we are seeing how many gifts we can make to others this year. Ned says that if you were to hear of the number of Lily's gifts yon would think she ‘ had fallen heir to a gold mine,’ but that yon would quickly change your mind if you saw them. I know of twenty-seven gifts that I am going to give, and for fear that you may think I have fallen heir to a gold mine, I shall tell you what some of them are. Some of them are not worth anything in money, but mamma says that a thing is worth giving when the one that receives it is happier because it is given to him ; and some people care more for the love that goes with a gift than for the money that was paid for it. My most expensive gift is for mamma ; Aunt Nora showed me how to make it, and grandma gave me everything I needed for it except the ribbon and floss, for which I had to pay a shilling. I forgot to say that it is a crazy patchwork cushion. For papa I have knit a pair of coarse mittens. The yarn cost sd, but oh ! how long it took me to knit them, and I did every stitch of them. I have made a paper doll-house for Cousin Nettie out of a big pasteboard box. I cut out holes in the sides for doors and windows; then with a pencil I made the pieces I cut out look like doorsand window-shutters and then 1 fastened them to I he house again. For hinges I pasted one edge of a strip of cloth to the door, and the other to the side of the house.

Red paper marked with a pencil made a pretty carpet, and the curtains are of tissue-paper. 1 here are pictures hanging on the wall with coloured pasteboard frames, and the furniture is made of pasteboard, small boxes and such things. For little Cousin Nora, I have made a picture-book. I took four pieces of paper-muslin -each piece was about fifteen inches long ami nine inches wide—and stitching them together down the centre on the machine made a book of sixteen pages. 1 scalloped the edges of the leaves with the scissors, and pasted in the pictures. I have seen books made like this befoie, but Aunt Nora lias made mine different from all the others.

I left space by every picture for a piece of blank paper to l>e pasted, and on each paper Aunt Nora wrote something about the picture. To make it plainer I will tell jou about one pictuie. It is one of a little gill with book and slate on her way to

school, and with her is a very laige dog. Aunt Nora wrote this about it : ‘ This girl is going to school. Her name is Linna. The dog’s name is Hero. When they get to the schoolhouse Hero will tnrn around and go back home, and then Linna’s mamma will know her little girl is safe at school. When Nora is as big as Linna, her papa will buy her a book and slate, and she will go to school. Nora has a dog, too ; if you ask her to do so, she will tell you about him.’ And so you see that everybody to whom she shows her book will tell her the same stories about the pictures. My gift for grandmamma is a foot-warmer. It is two cushions tied together at two of the opposite corners with ribbons. Just the top side of the top cushion has to be pretty —it is of crazy patchwork, and mamma says I did my work well, only she doesn’t know how much practice I have had lately. A ruffle from an old grey cashmere dress is pleated around the edge of the top cushion, and hides the lower cushion. After Christmas if grandmamma wants to keep her feet warm while she is sewing, she can put a warm brick between her two cushions, and then her warm footstool will be ready for use. My gift for Ned Brown is a kind of a joke, but I think that he may like it. Ned is the greatest boy to collect, and he has collections of ever so many things. But I’ve something new for him ; it’s a nut collection. The case for the collection is a big, Bat pasteboard box, and with long, thin strips of wood papa divided it into twenty-six little square compartments, and one big one as big as four of the little ones together.

Then out of note-paper I made a little blank book that would just fit into the big compartment? The book has twenty-six pages besides the blue cardboard covers, and in it he is to write descriptions of the nuts—a page to a nut. I have started the collection for him with ten nuts, counting a piece of cocoanut-sliell as one, and that is all I can get. Do you suppose Tiecould ever find sixteen more ? As you may well guess, I didn’t write the descriptions in the blank book.

Papa told me how to do Ned’s nut collection. Of course I couldn’t think of so many gifts if others did not help me with their suggestions, and help me make some of them, too.

I was a subscriber to Our Little Ones, a magazine for small children, for three years, and I have them all. When I was a very little girl mamma taught me to be careful with books, and these are not torn any and are very little soiled. I have picked out fifteen of them to keep. I think so much of them all, but those fifteen I just couldn’t give away.

The other twenty-one magazines will make gifts for fourteen children—two magazines to some and only one to others.

For Aunt Mary Doane, who works for mamma sometimes, I have made an ornamental fan to be put on the shelf over her fireplace. From heavy pasteboard I cut out a fan the size of a large palm-leaf. This I covered with crimped tissue-paper and bound the edge of it with a strip of the paper—pasted it on. Then I put five picture-cards on the fan, one in the centre and one in each corner.

To fasten the cards to the fan I threaded a large needle with narrow ribbon, and then I pushed the needle through the card and fan, and back through the fan and card, and then tied the two ends of the ribbon together in a little bow.

Each card was tied down at two corners, and eveiy card has the picture of a child or children on it. I chose that kind because Aunt Mary is so fond of little chilren. To finish off the fan I took a wide strip of the tissuepaper and tied around the handle in a pretty bow. And for my part I think the fan is very pretty, even if Aunt Nora did laugh when she saw it, and 1 feel sure that Aunt Mary will be pleased with it, too. Aunt Nora is so very particular how things look that I had become quite discouraged in trying to think of a gift for her, for I knew she couldn’t care for anything that I can make, and I haven’t any money with which to buynice gifts. So I was very much relieved when mamma made a suggestion. You see grandmamma livesin the next house to ours, and it seems to me that Aunt Nora is always wanting me to go down in town or somewhere for her. And I usually go, but sometimes lam pretty cross about it. Well, I have an envelope with thirty of my prettiest picture-cards in it fot her, and with them is this little note : Hear Aunt Nora. I did sigh and sigh. For I had no money a nice gift for you Io buy. To make you something lovely I did wish to try. Hut my poor work could only shock your ‘artist’s eye.’ Hut whenever you want an errand done Just give me a card and see how I’ll run ! And until these thirty cards are all given out. I’ll go at once, and never grumble or pout. I don’t know what Aunt Nora will think of this kind of a gift, but I do know that I’ll be glad when 1 get all my nice cards back again. And now I want to tell about Jimmy Crow, the man that works in the garden anil saws wood, and such things, for papa. He lives by himself and does his own cooking, Hashing and mending. Last summer he was always teasing Lily and me because we were such ‘ tomboys he said we would never be any help to our mammas, and that he didn’t believe we would ever lie able to even hem a towel or make the most common kind of cake.

Lily and I have a partnership gift for him. I have learned how to make Auntie cakes and Lily can make nice biscuits, and I am going to bake some Auntie cakes and Lily is going to make sandwiches out of some of her biscuits ; and we have each hemmed a towel, and we shall take a large paper bag and put the towels in it first, then in smaller bags put the cakes and sandwiches, and put them in the large bag ; and to make things look fancy we’ll tie up the bag with a wide ribbon of coloured tissue-paper. We have made up this rhyme to write on a card and pin to the bag : r

We can use a needle and thread. And we can cook— You’ll take back some things you’ve said When inside you look.

I am afraid you will not think my gifts very nice, but I hope they will please the ones for whom they are intended ; mamma has always helped me to decide if a gift was appropriate.

Although I have spent all of my money and done a great of tedious work (oh ! knitting those mittens was just awful, but papa is as bad as Jimmy Crow about thinking little girls ought to know how to knit and sew and cook) yet I am already paid in anticipating the pleasure of giving. And if the gifts I receive this Christmas do not equal my expectations, for of course I have thought a little about what I may get Christmas, I think that I shall most truly believe, anyhow, that ‘ It is more blessed to give than receive. ’