There are some difficulties in giving a Christmas dinner in a large city, as nearly all the waiters are sure to be drunk, and the cook has also, perhaps, been at the frumenty. Being a religious as well as a social festival, it is apt to bring about a confusion of ideas. But, everything else apart, it is Children's Day; it is the day when, as Dickens says, we should remember the time when its great Founder was a child Himself. It is especially the day for the friendless young, the children in hospitals, the lame, the sick, the weary, the blind. No child should be left alone on Christmas Day, for loneliness with children means brooding. A child growing up with no child friend is not a child at all, but a premature man or woman.
The best Christmas present to a boy is a box of tools, the best to a girl any number of dolls. After dressing and undressing them, giving them a bath, taking them through a fit of sickness, punishing them, and giving them an airing in the park,—for little maidens begin to imitate mamma at a very early age,—the next best amusement is to manufacture a doll's house. The brother must plane the box,—an old wine box will do,—and fit in it four compartments, each of which must be elaborately papered. Then a "real carpet" must be nailed down and pictures hung on the wall. These bits, framed with gold paper, usually require mamma's help. The kitchen must be fitted up with tins, which perhaps had better be bought, but after the batterie de cuisine is finished, then the chairs and beds should be made at home. Cardboard boxes can be cut into excellent doll's beds. Pillows, bolsters, mattress, sheets, pillow-cases, will keep little fingers busy for many days.
When they get older, and can write letters, a post-office is a delightful boon. These are to be bought, but they are far more amusing if made at home. Any good-sized card-box will do for this purpose. The lid should be fastened to it so that when it stands up it will open like a door. A slit must be cut out about an inch wide, and from five to six inches long, so as to allow the postage of small parcels, yet not large enough even to admit the smallest hand. Children should learn to respect the inviolate character of the post from the earliest age.
On the door should be written the times of the post. Most children are fond of writing letters to one another, and this will of course give rise to a grand manufacture of note paper, envelopes, and post-cards, and will call forth ingenuity in designing and colouring monograms and crests, for their note paper and envelopes. An envelope must be taken carefully to pieces, to form a flat pattern. Then those cut from it have to be folded, gummed together, a touch of gum put on the flap and the monogram made to correspond. It is wonderful what occupation this gives for weeks. A paint-box should be also amongst the Christmas gifts.
Capital scrap-books can be made by children. Old railway guides may be the foundation, and every illustrated paper the magazine of art. A paste-pot, next to a paint-box, is a most serviceable toy.
Children like to imitate their elders. A little boy of two years enjoys smoking a pipe as he sees grandpapa smoke, and knocks out imaginary ashes, as he does, against the door.
Hobby horses are profitable steeds, and can be made to go through any amount of paces. But mechanical toys are more amusing to his elders than to the child, who wishes to do his own mechanism. A boy can be amused by turning him out of the house, giving him a ball or a kite, or letting him dig in the ground for the unhappy mole. Little girls, who must be kept in, on a rainy day, or invalid children, are very hard to amuse and recourse must be had to story-telling, to the dear delightful thousand and one books now written for children, of which "Alice in Wonderland" is the flower and perfection.
For communities of children, as in asylums and schools, there is nothing like music, songs, and marches; anything to keep them in time and tune. It removes for a moment that institutionized look which has so unhappy an effect.
Happy is the child who has inherited a garret full of old trunks, old furniture, old pictures, any kind of old things. It is a precious inheritance. Given the dramatic instinct and a garret, and a family of quick-witted boys and girls will have amusement long after the Christmas holidays are passed.
It would be a great amusement for weeks before Christmas, if children were taught to make the ornaments for the tree, as is done in economical Germany. Here the ideas of secrecy and mystery are so associated with Santa Claus that such an idea would be rejected. But a thing is twice as interesting if we put ourselves into it.