HERE'S TO SANTA-ALL OF THEM

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 2, Issue 247, 9 December 1940, Page 6

HERE'S TO SANTA-ALL OF THEM

There's a dear old gentleman who has only the one opportunity each year for finding his way into the limelight, so let us help him to make the most of his chance. The poor old chap will be cast aside for another twelvemonth, as soon as Christmas isi past.

Father Christmas is, of course the subject of this gossip. Within the last few weeks he has combed out his white whiskers, brushed the moths out of his red robes, and the nesting birds out of his red cowl, and has listened with a smile: to the hundreds of millions of "Gimmes" which have floated around the globe.

It doesn't seem to matter what sort of year the old chap has ha.d, he alwaysi comes up smiling- as December 25 draws near. How he has managed that smile — and he has found anything in hife pocket with which to back up the smile —in the last few years has been a puzzle to the economists, but this year it has not been such an effort to him. The sun of ©plenty is peeping over the horizon, and after the lean years,, there are beginning to be seen the ups of the streamers of better times, so the problem of filling the million ot so stockings of State does seem so impossible to the myriads who act as the old chap's deputies. It's a strange thing about Father Christmas that although for weeks before Christmas Day he ds on view to. everyone, _ he insists on doing the serious part of his job in the mystery of night. Children since the first Father Christmas started on. his rounds have done their best to catch him at their stockings, but the records suggest that so far the nearest to actual' contact was achieved by the youngster who heard, him utter a few words. That youngster used strategy—and a, rope placed a few inches, above the bedroom floor. He argued that should he fall asleep before the visitor arrived he would be awakened when con" tact was made with the rope. (Continued foot next column).

The cloak of mystery is a great thing' for the old chap Even he could not maintain all the year round the angelic disposition which descends on him at this time of the year. But even though he slips back into His human frailjti.es, the spell of thinking solely of others makes a better man of him