Wedding anniversaries are celebrated in any number of ways. The "party" may be one of two alone or it may be a dance. Most often it is a dinner, and occasionally, an afternoon tea.

In Germany a silver wedding is a very important event and a great celebration is made of it, but in America it is not very good form to ask any but intimate friends and family to an anniversary party—especially as those bidden are supposed to send presents. These need not, however, be of value; in fact the paper, wooden and tin wedding presents are seldom anything but jokes. Crystal is the earliest that is likely to be taken seriously by the gift-bearers. Silver is always serious, and the golden wedding a quite sacred event.

Most usually this last occasion is celebrated by a large family dinner to which all the children and grandchildren are bidden. Or the married couple perhaps choose an afternoon at home and receive their friends and neighbors, who are, of course, supposed to brings presents made of gold.

CHAPTER XXIII

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CHRISTENINGS

A child can, of course, be christened without making a festivity of it at all—just as two people can be married with none but the clergyman and two witnesses—but nearly every mother takes this occasion to see her friends and show her baby to them.