The Stratford Evening Post. WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER TUESDAY, DECEMBER 24, 1912. CHRISTMASTIDE.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXV, Issue 1, 24 December 1912, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post. WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER TUESDAY, DECEMBER 24, 1912. CHRISTMASTIDE.

With all the signs abroad one hardly needs reminding that again Christmas Eve has come, and come in right merry mood. ' Uncertainty may surround the date of the Nativity, but it has become the custom in all countries to accept December 25th as the day 7 for its celebration. In clays of cld the only Christmas setting seemed in snow scenes and blazing firesides, and though—as it has been truly said—“poets, writers and painters have combined to celebrate the glow of Christmas against its inclement background,” we must perforce in this new Britain of the South keep O'Ur Christmas beneath a sun in full strength and splendour. But wo do it -well, and Christmastide flourishes in broiling heat, and is no less a glad and merry time with us than in those older northern lands midst ice and snow. With many other writers, Washington Irving saw fitness only in a wintry Christmas, for he says: “The pitchy gloom without makes the heart dilate on entering the room filled with the glow and warmth cf the evening fire. Where does the honest face of hospitality expand into a broader and more cordial smile, where is the shy glance of love more sweetly eloquent, than by the wintry fireside? And as the hollow blast of wintry wind rushes through the hall, claps the distant door, whistles about the casement, and rumbles down the chimney, what can bo more grateful than that feeling of sober and sheltered security with which wo look round upon the comfortable chamber and the scene of domestic hilarity?” Some there are amongst us who know well such Christmas scenes, and who perchance, sigh for them, but though the change of season and climatic conditions may in our own goodly land carry some artistic and certainly some sentimental loss, the message is the same glad one of Peace and Goodwill all the wideworld over—

“Summer or Winter, ’Twill be Christmas Day.”