ABOUT CHRISTMAS GIFTS.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume VI, Issue 11, 28 January 1905, Page 1 (Supplement)

ABOUT CHRISTMAS GIFTS.

“Speaking of Christmas toys,” said the bachelor uncle, makes me think of a last year’s experience. I went into a toy shop and bought an incandescent electric light plant for a small niece of mine in the east. It was one of the cleverest devices I ever saw, and I sent it on to my brother-in-law about a week before Christmas, with instructions, of course, to give it to my nieco on Christmas day. But a few days later I received a special delivery letter from the father of the child, asking me to send on some more of the incandescent globes immediately. He explained that he had been so interested in playing with it himself that he had broken all of them.”

“People work a good deal about what to give for Christmas presents, but they might just as well reserve the energy, when they are thinking of a child less than a year old,” remarked a visitor. "I had an experience that taught me the lesson, a few months ago. I had been travelling in Japan for some time, and of course that is an ideal place for toys. The Japs make the moot curious and wonderful little devices for children to play with, and while there, I spent a good deal of time running around in a risksha stopping at the toy stores to buy things for a nine months’ old baby at home. Of counse, I arrived’ loaded, and immediately began to pass out the things one by one to the child But to my astonishment, he wouldn’t pay the slightest attention to anything except an old pasteboard box that came around one of the pretty toys!

“What shall I give him?” is woman’s appealing question at this time of year. But it is not only the Christmas present that is puzzling—a woman’s gift to one of the opposite sex is a difficult thing to decide upon at any time of year, and in any country.

A few months ago two American women were chatting in the library of the Empress of China—one of the Pacific liners. Both of them had been spending months travelling in oriental countries, where almost anything in the shops is eagerly accepted as a souvenir gift by those at home. Each had been describing the various things she had collected, and finally one of them said: “I bought a pair of tortoiseshell military hair brushes for my husband. I don’t know what- he’ll think of them, for you know he is just as bald headed as he can be I But I just couldn’t think of another thing!”

“Yes, that is so, Christmas has degenerated in a way, and it seems too bad,” said young Mrs Blank to her girl friend caller. “We overlook the spirit of it, and people think too much about the intrinsic value of a gift, and not enough of the sentiment of Christmas. And that makes me think —if you’ll excuse me a minute I’ll just telephone George that I’ll meet him down town this afternosn. He is going to give me a set of China for Christmas, and I want to help select it. If I don’t, he’ll be mire to get some cheap things that I wouldn’t want-!”