CHRISTMAS-NEW STYLE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 17, 13 February 1909, Page 3

CHRISTMAS-NEW STYLE.

London, December 18. A remarkable change has come over our social habits in the Old Country. Christmas hitherto has been regarded as the festival of home, but to-day almost as many people make the festive season the opportunity of escaping from their daily environments as spend it in "the bosom of the family."- There are, of course, still thousands of hdines where the old-fashioned family re-unions and the old-fashioned Christmas fare and games still hold sway, but the fashion of spending Yuletide away from home is rapidly gaining ground. Every year sees more and more people take advantage of the brief Christmas holiday to visit l'aris, Switzerland, Jloute Carlo, and other Continental resorts, and the big London hotels are catering more extensively each succeeding winter for people whose idea of festivity is associated with dining in public". The result is that we iind the Carlton Hotel announcing that in consequence vt the great demand for places, the price of the Christmas Eve supper will this year be a guinea instead of 10s fid as formerly.

'•This supper is an I'labomlo affair.l Go into the Palm Court at the Carlton on Christmas Eve, anil you will find sitting around a huge Norwegian pine, brilliantly illuminated ir.nl laden with glittering ornaments and toys, and set amidst an elaborate attempt to imitate a mountain snow scene, hundreds of people of all ages and of both sexes. Carol-singers trill melodiously, and band plays airs appropriate to the season, interspersed with languorous waltz j music and rag-time outbursts, and alien] comes Father Christmas leading a snowivhito donkey, from whose capacious parriiers presents are distributed to the women and children. Then comes n children's ilaneo and, later, the supper. The glitter and gaiety of a function like this is undoubtedly very attractive mill in strong contrast to the average Christmas Eve at home. Christinas Day itself is celebrated at the Carlton more quietly, but the number of diners on this day grows larger every year. Thn same thing holds good at other largo hotels, where special efforts have been made to cator for the up-to-date folk who find Christmas it home "too slow." In one of Dickens's stories tin' plight of a man who had to spend Christmas at an hold is depicted as truly pitiable. Tf he were alive today the novelist might possibly find it in his heart to pour out pathos on behalf of the unfortunate who was obliged to spend his Christmas at homo. The bookings for the Continent this year are greatlv in excess of those for any previous Christinas, and nearly all our home seaside resorts are anticipating a big influx of visitors for the holidays. Indications all round, bidecl. point to the rapid extinction of the oldfashioned Christmas.—X.7., Times.