NEW YEAR'S DAY
Place Cards at Table (White card, pressed four-leaf clover, or paints)
1. Having found and pressed four-leaved clovers in the days of summer, paste one lightly to each place card as symbol of good-luck.
2. Copy a clover-leaf with paints and write on card some appropriate quotation signifying good-will.
Decorated Note Paper (Writing paper, leaf, paste or paints)
Paste a real clover leaf (or paint one) on the writing paper upon which you may be writing a New Year's letter to your friend.
Calendar (12 oblong blotters, white or colored, ribbon to match, 1 inch wide and about ¾ yards long, tiny calendar pad, paste)
Take the calendar pad apart and paste the leaf for each month upon one of the blotters. Then tie the blotters together with the ribbon. This makes suitable New Year's gift. (See also [page 74].)
New Year's Bells (Red cardboard, scissors, paste, ribbon)
Cut out a bell and paste a calendar pad on it. Or cut 12 small bells and paste one leaf of calendar pad on each, stringing all together with ribbon.
Good-Luck Pigs
With our German population the pig signifies "good-luck," and at New Year's pigs, big and little, made of various materials, are quite in order. A favorite candy, made of sugar and bitter-almond, is in the shape of a pig, and is used to present to friends at this holiday time. Many suggestions already given may be carried out with the pig idea in mind.
Midnight Watching
If friends stay up to watch the Old Year out, any of the above-named articles may be made by the children for souvenirs. A poem which may suitably be read at this time is Tennyson's "Ring Out, Wild Bells;" also, Longfellow's "The Poet's Calendar." A timely topic for discussion is the never-answered question: When does the new century begin—with January 1, 1900, or 1901? Timothy Dwight, President of Yale College, 1795-1817, wrote some clever verses apropos of the subject when he helped usher in the 19th Century.