CHRISTMAS. Some Seasonable Remarks.

Free Lance, Volume III, Issue 130, 27 December 1902, Page 8

CHRISTMAS. Some Seasonable Remarks.

THIS is the time of the year when everyone works doubly hard, clearing up, so as to be able to cry "enough!" arA go out of business for ai few days. By the time that the pohutakawa blooms, and the sun is oftener risible than not, the average man of business feels that he has earned a short respite from the oarking cares of office. The young man, with the skin off his nose, pursuing pleasure on a bicycle, with a towel tied round his neck, is a more exhilarating spectacle than the same young man, with sallow cheeks and busaness-indueed dyspepsia, huddled up over a ledger. * * * To have quit wondering how you caai make a farthing a yard more on that pink flannelette does not do you as much good as a flounder in the briny at Day's Bay, or a revel on the sand at Island Bay. You must do those calouataons and worry through your business, of course, but Christmas, with its myriad joys, will help you to forget that you were ever anything than a human butterfly, born to flutter through a world with never an entomologist's net in sight. Maybe, you have not been quite the success you imagined you ought to have been during the year that is waning, and maybe you are one of tihe class to which the immortal Scrooge belonged. This, at any rate, is the season for feasting and gaiety. • • • If you feel that the cap of Scrooge fits you, put it on, and make a tlrnking cap of it There are sacrifices you might make, lives to be made brighter, resolves that have been made at previous Christmasses and never kept. Make them over again — and keep them this time. The good time, the temporary surcease from care, the open air. and the sunshine will tone you up, so that the good that is in you may rise to the surface. "The Englishman takes his pleasure sadly." The individual who said so had in his mind's eye the Englishman who failed to lose his business self at Christmas time. The Englishman of to-day takes his pleasure less sadly than he used to He is more volatile than was his forefather, and n*s colonial brother is more volatile than

he. Blessed by nature with eveiythiing that makes for the peifectiom of a holiday, New Zealand would be in no wise "outre" were she to exult on occasions such, as these, as the warm-blooded people of the Contineiit do. Sans souci" anglicised is a good motto for a New Zealander, and we might well demonstrate our capabilities for hard work by demonstrating the peifection with which we enjoy ourselves. • • ♦ And, while you aie enjoying that roast goose, and that rich pudding, filled with happy thoughts of those gathered round the fesirVe boards, and dream perchance of Chiristmasses spent elsewnere — Chnstmasses in a setting of snow — remember that there are others, who have no roast goose, and no rich pudding. Ponder on the fact that it has probably been in your power during the past year to hare eased the load of oare on weak shoulders, and resolve that you will strive hard to "diffuse the gifts" in future. * • • There are those to whom the sound of Christmas revels will be a mockery. Within our own gates there are sickness and poverty. There can be no universal Christmas joy, but you can help a good deal towards: this end. Colonially speaking, there is every reason to congratulate ourselves that the dying year ha& been a phenomenally prosperous one. Ruin was promised, as usual. It never came. It cannot come. By the time that tihis is in the hands of our readers, even the pessimists will be thinking about fresh air and sunshine. May the sunshine thaw frozen hearts, and brighten all paths, so that everyone in this happy land may reciprocate the w.sh which we extend to our readers^ — A Merry Christmas, and a Happy Nb"« Year '