The Master of the House has an old-fashioned weakness—what may be called a “Dickensy” weakness—for things Christmassy. And his family have all childlike tastes and are quite ready to minister to his picturesque fancy.
We have a Christmas tree—a Spruce sapling, selected yearly for sacrifice in the territory called the Wilderness. It must be said that the wide library, with the capacious hearth and the beamed ceiling, lends a suitable scenery to this homelike ‹but, we fear, obsolescent› entertainment. The tree is lit up on the first night for ourselves; on the second for the household; and a third time for the children. For the true pleasures of Yule would be incomplete without a “foregathering-and-rejoicing-together” ‹as only a tough German compound word could express it› of all grades of age and station. The children, in this case, are those of the Catechism class and of our employés—which pompous term must be understood to refer to the gardener, the chauffeur, the under-gardener, and the “occasional help.” This last has five of them—so it mounts up satisfactorily.
THINGS CHRISTMASSY
The beloved “furry ones” are not forgotten. Loki, who is always in a state of violent excitement on Christmas Tree nights, has a toy animal to make acquaintance with, tease, and finally worry. Some one ‹it must have been Juvenal› suggested tying up nice clean bones in red ribbons; but out of regard for Grandma’s carpet, the succulent thought has never been “materialized.”
The Master of the House, and Juvenal, are also full of solicitude for the feathery things in Winter. The bird-baths are carefully thawed—it seems, by the way, to be in the coldest days of the year that they appear to prefer to bathe; sand baths are generally found sufficient in the Summer, one wonders why. In cold weather generally, cocoanuts filled with fat are disposed in various parts of the garden, around which tits and finches of every shade dispute noisily all day. But on Christmas day the terraces, the balustrades and steps round the house are further disfigured with such an abundance of crumbs and other tempting morsels, that, even with the help of all the black birds from neighbouring copses, they cannot come even with the whole of the feast.
We give each other enchanting presents. The lovely little carved-wood Joan of Arc, on a bracket in Grandpa’s library; the Madonna of Cluny “prayer-stick” in one corner of the chimney-piece; the Medici copy of Filippino Lippi’s wonderful angel in the National Gallery, in the grey and yellow bedroom; the cut-glass goblets painted with purple plums and red cherries and blue grapes in the drawing-room—all these were this year’s Christmas gifts, cunningly chosen, we think, and a constant delight to our eyes.