IN OTHER LANDS

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 3, Issue 720, 21 December 1933, Page 7

IN OTHER LANDS

A SPANISH CHRISTMAS. (Sent in by Red Rose.) The Spanish children enjoy Christmas just as much as you do, hut they celebrate the seiason in a different way. Before the bells ring for the midnight mass on Christmas Eve, they hasten to do some good deed for others. They may have to leave the gay crowd, with its joyous mixture of castanets, dancing and singing. They may have to take off their best red, yellow and black velvet jackets in order to do the good deed, but do it they must. W'hen it is done and when the tapers are lighted before the image of the Virgin, they are free to mingle with the crowds. They see the markets crowded with turkeys, pigs, cheeses, sheep, flowers and, oh, such beautiful toys waiting to be purchased on Christnras Eve. The crowd lceep up dancing and the singing all night. Breakfast is served at mid-day on Christmas. There are chickens, garlic, sweetmeats, fruits, and alwiays the best chestnuts you ever tasted. Men wearing broad-brimmed sombreros, lean up against their carts in the streets, offering chestnuts for sale. Perhaps the most beautiful Christmas custom in Spain is the ancient dance. It is devoutly and earnestly 'given before the altar of the cath'edral, to the accompaniment of castanets. A JAPANESE SANTA. The children of the land of the Rising Sun know nothing of the mysterious joys of Christmastide — (Christmias as we know it — but the name of Hotei or Hoteiosh'o, a celebrated Chinese priest, revered for his consideration for children, means to the Japanese boys and girls what Santa Claus signifies to English boys and girls. Hotei, personified in Japanese iart as a god of joviality and kindness, is represented with an immense sack, gathering- together good things for his young Nipponese friends. He is also pictured with a large bag on his