Is it that this is true, or that we have made him such by our own election, refusing him his rightful place, and forcing him ourselves to the shoulders that need have borne no such burden? We stagger under the responsibilities of this time that should mean only the purest pleasure. We grow feverish and anxious in paying a debt when free will offering alone has any part in the real Christmas. Children count their presents and are sad or sulky if tree or stocking hold one less than those of the child across the way. Boys and girls value the gift for the money it cost, and have learned such valuation from fathers and mothers who have discussed their own gifts from this standpoint. The spirit of bargaining possesses all; to get the most for the least outlay; to make the sum expended bring the utmost possible show. The counters are piled with flaunting bric-a-brac—cheap imitation of articles beyond the purse of the average buyer, and the woman whose supply of dish-towels is renewed from old sheets and who has not dared to buy book or photograph for a year, gives and receives some senseless plaque or staring vase, and might even resent a dozen dish-towels as quite out of harmony with the spirit of Christmas. The children share the same feeling, and if they make anything with their own hands, seek something so flimsy and useless, that as quickly as may be it is quietly tucked out of sight. And even where common sense has larger play, the amount of what must be done has gained such proportions that feverish hurry fills the days of preparation, and utter exhaustion the days that follow.
“I don’t think much of Christmas,” a small and cynical boy remarked not long ago. “It’s just a regular grab game, that’s what it is. I know fellows that join three or four Sunday-schools just for what they’ll get on the tree; and I know one fellow that hired other fellows, because you see, he couldn’t be everywhere at once, and when his name was called off they just went up and got his things for him. What do you think of that?”
“I think it’s pretty bad, but that isn’t the sort of Christmas you have at home, Horace?”
“Yes, it is. Ours is just the same, only not so many of us. Gussie is mad if I don’t spend a lot, and says I’m mean, and mamma says so too if papa’s present doesn’t suit her. I’m sick of it. Why didn’t you give me anything last Christmas? You always did before.”
The answer would make an article of itself, for as I listened my soul burned within me, and when the child ended, with his calculating little face turned up to mine, I spake with my tongue, and in the end brought a new look into the grave, blue eyes. To him as to too many of us, it had come to be the gift and not the giver, the symbol, and not the fact behind it. This is a one-sided presentation you will say, an arraignment undeserved by many; and even if deserved, the saying which does duty in so many directions, once more comes up: “What are you going to do about it?”
What we must all do, if the day is not to be permanently despoiled of all real significance and beauty, is at once to settle absolutely into simpler lines. The same passive acceptance of custom, that has doubled our work in all home directions and made the multiplication of labor-saving machinery merely a reason for an always increasing ratio of labor, operates here also. A sensible writer in the Christian Union not long ago remarked that in the days of our grandmothers it was ten children to one ruffle, whereas now it was ten ruffles to one child. So it has been with gifts, and the child of the last generation who rejoiced in two or three, considers the child of this defrauded with less than a dozen. Cheap toys, soon destroyed; cheap books, cleaving from their binding in a week; cheap candy, fair to see but slow poison to the eater—fill the stockings and crowd the tree, when the same money would have secured one well-made, perfect gift, worth the keeping for a lifetime. Art in its new adaptations is beginning to teach us the value of honest work, yet with an education which has known flimsiness and tawdriness as the chief characteristic of a child’s possessions, how hard is the transition to simplicity and strength. That we have made such strides away from old conditions is only another proof of the enormous recuperative power, part of the birthright of every American, who, born, it may be, in a log cabin, ends his days as an authorized and accepted art critic. It is safe then to believe that the mass of common sense people need only to consider the bearings of the Christmas craze in its present workings to decide that a change must come, and to take active measures toward such change.
Necessarily, only women can bring about such change, for it is on them that the chief burden of Christmas work has fallen and will continue to fall. For each woman there must be a pause and a well-considered determination as to both amount and degree of effort and expenditure. Where there is little money personal effort is the only substitute.
The numberless fashion magazines are filled at this season with hints for Christmas gifts, some practical and helpful, but more quite useless to limited purses. A few suggestions as to home-made gifts are given here, the reader’s own fancy and memory being trusted to fill out the list, which must necessarily be a limited one.
A most useful present is a sofa pillow, covered with one of those large, bright silk handkerchiefs which are found in gentlemen’s furnishing stores. It may be of cardinal, old gold, blue or olive green, to match the furniture, and must have a darker border. If the corners are plain, a figure of a dog’s head, an owl, or a spray may be outlined in one, with silk of some contrasting hue. Stretch the handkerchief smoothly over the silesia-covered pillow made of a suitable size, turn the ornamented corner back and fasten around its edge, and fit a piece of black velvet neatly in its place. The edge is finished with a silk cord of the same color, and a bow to match is placed on the velvet. The whole can be made in a day, and is both effective and inexpensive. Pine needles or hops may be used for filling the pillow, which may thus be more welcome to an invalid friend.