THE PUTARURU PRESS. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 20, 1928. GOOD CHEER.

Putaruru Press, Volume VI, Issue 267, 20 December 1928, Page 4

THE PUTARURU PRESS.

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 20, 1928. GOOD CHEER.

’Phone 28' :• * - P.O. Box 44 Office ... - Oxford Place

CHRISTMAS DAY, one of the greatest festivals of our year, falls on Tuesday. • It is recogpised as a period of good'cheer in the best and highest. sense of the term. It is a time when m@n of u bur race almost automatically radiate goodwill towards ,one another. Taken all in all, tills is the most outstanding feature of our Christmas celebration—good cheer towards all.

It was not always thus. Men have in the past quarrelled over the date, over the method of celebration, and have even decreed that the 25th should be a market day as its celebration from a religious point of view was regarded as a heathen practice. Even to-day in Scotland, Christmas Day ranks low in importance in comparison with New Year’s Day—but the spirit is the same. Despite these vicissitudes resulting from man’s varied angle of vision, throughout the British Empire there has evolved one outstanding feature in connection with Christmastide good cheer—a time when man more naturally than at any other period of his year displays a “ fellow feeling wondrous kind.” 1

To some Christmas recalls memories of the glow and warmth of the Yule-tide log, with hard, glistening frosts without. To young New Zealanders, it means heat, picnics, and light-hearted life in the open. To all these come thoughts of absent friends —predominating is good cheer, i Retrospectively, we should not care to dwell on a Christmas time given over to pagan feasts, to pure solemnity, or to the materialism of the Puritan. These phases were necessary to their periods, and the serving of Time’s pendulum has caused them to decay. To-day the process of evolution in our race decrees that good cheer shall be paramount, and who shall say that it is not the great need of our world to-day. In business, in social life, in politics, there is greater need for goodwill. Between master and man, between neighbour and neighbour, between nation and nation, there is need for the true spirit of Christinas time—good cheer. At Christmas time this spirit flows naturally as we have said, almost automatically—and man radiates good cheer. Could this influence be extended and given greater stamina the world would not be so fretful as it is.

Christmas Day is circumscribed and limited in time, but there is no reason why these limitations should be applied to the inspiration the day kindles. The world has need of it; we might endeavour tb give it to the world. It is a thought we offer, that we endeavour to fan the flames so that the spirit of good cheer may burn brightly, net only at Christmas," but throughout the year, that man to man should radiate good cheer for three hundred and sixty-five days instead of one. In offering it we sincerely hope our readers will be participants in the best things of life, thus obtained, and that the coming season and year may be for them one of true happiness, health and prosperity—that their lives may be filled with good cheer.