Will be at Home
on Thursday evening, October twelfth
adding in the corner “1910-1915.”
The guests invited are usually familiar friends. They tax their ingenuity to procure gifts of appropriate material that will amuse the company, or send articles that will be useful. Wooden spoons of all sorts and sizes, mammoth pencils, knife-trays, watchmen’s rattles, boxes large and small, towel-racks, chairs, small tables—all are appropriate gifts. It is easy to purchase at a toy store wooden animals of absurd shapes, picture puzzles, jumping-jacks, etc. Two of the guests might represent a couple from Noah’s ark, Mr. and Mrs. Shem or Mr. and Mrs. Ham. They should be dressed in the traditional costume, and should move in a stiff and wooden way. Another pair could appear as jointed dolls or other figures. The decorations could consist of shavings or of pussy-willow or other boughs.
For the tenth anniversary the tinware shop furnishes ample material for gifts. It is usually possible to get a tinsmith to make, for a small charge, articles of some special shape. The bride may be adorned with a tin tiara and other ornaments, the groom wearing a large tin flower in his buttonhole. A suit of armor of the same material, accompanied by spear and shield, might be presented to him with due ceremony. One guest should be the spokesman for the company and explain that, owing to the dangers of the public roads, it was thought well to bestow upon their friend some means of defense against the ubiquitous automobile, the spear being intended to lift arrogant chauffeurs from the perch of vantage.
To a silver-wedding celebration a few intimate friends of the family may be asked, or the affair may take the form of a reception. The invitations may be engraved in silver letters and may read:
1889 1914
Mr. and Mrs. John Thompson
request the pleasure of
. . . . . . . . company