CHRISTMAS, 1943

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 7, Issue 36, 24 December 1943, Page 4

CHRISTMAS, 1943

LIKE a friendly and comforting- light penetrating the murk of the world's perplexities, Christmas the time honoured feast of smiles and happiness is with us once more. In

spite of trouble, care and apprehension, it has come again to warm the hearts of men with its glow of goodfellowslrip and gladness. Let the nations pour out their substance and blood, in the causes of destruction, let the propaganda of hate defile the pure air of Heaven, and the despairing cries of defenceless civilians go unheeded, the spirit of Christmas though a strange companion in the world of to-day, cannot pass unnoticed. It is too deeply ingrained in our nature, too remotely sacred in the higher being of our contradictory human structures. Thus in spite of war and even in the face of national calamity, the merry chimes will peel forth announcing the: anniversary of the birth of the Son of Man nearly two thousand years ago. On Christmas morn the glad news will ring out again from a million rocking •steeples and war, privation, and fear will momentarily be 4 delegated to the background. Out of the surrounding gloom will step the jovial spirit of good cheer and laughter. Gifts and happy greetings will be exchanged. Families will reunite for the proverbial Christmas dinner and on all hands the greatest of Christian festivals will come into its own. In New Zealand with its warm bright summer, Christmas means more of a holiday and change of scene than at Home, where the festive board groans with the weight of seasonable dishes, and the warmth of the roaring fireside and glowing hearth defies the wintry conditions outside. The colonial Christmas spells excursions to the great out-of-doors. The home: gathering often as not takes place in the motor caravan in the tented camps by the quiet beauty of the lakeside, or by the wind-whipped sands of the seashores. Thus though the colonial Christmas assumes a more practical aspect, its deep and heartful meaning is unchanged and we retain in God's own country the same warm regard for it as our forbears in Merrie England through the centuries.