If you really wish to show your family and acquaintances that you love and would like to please them, you will suit your gifts thoughtfully to each of them, studying their necessities and tastes. You will not give grandma a gay neck ribbon, and Angie a pair of spectacles, nor present the cook with a volume of Tennyson, and brother Theodore with a pair of slippers when he already has three pair not worn out.
Gifts which little fingers themselves make are always especially prized by mammas and aunties. There is a great deal of fun and pleasure in preparing for Christmas, and half of it comes from the difficulty of making peoples' presents, when the people are always popping in at the wrong moment. Let me suggest two or three pretty things which the girls may make without much trouble, and with very little expense.
A chintz bag to contain the weekly stockings until they are mended is a gift to be prized by a busy mother. Let it be of any size you please, and gather it on either side to a square of pasteboard, the corners rounded a little at the lower edge. These squares must be covered, and on one of them may be gathered a little outside bag to hold darning cottons and thimbles, while the other must have some bits of gay flannel attached for a needle-book.
A set of table napkins may be worked with a tiny design in each corner. Beautiful hair-receivers are made of tiny Japanese parasols, opened half way, and looped up with ribbon. A baby's rattle may be easily made. Set up twenty-four stitches with scarlet single zephyr, knit across plain twenty-two times, bind off, and leave an end long enough to sew up the sides. Run strong thread through every stitch on one end, draw up tightly, and fasten; then stuff it with cotton, and when nearly full put in a twisted cord. Then make two more pieces of other colors, stuff in the same way, and fasten little bells to each, attaching all three to a rubber ring.
The little fan-shaped shells which are gathered on the beach in summer make lovely emery needle-cushions. Stuff the cushion with emery sand, and glue it fast to the shells, the large rounding ends apart. Tie with a loop of narrow satin ribbon.
A very beautiful afghan for grandpa can be made without much labor, if the whole family will join in knitting it. Take German town wool; you will need six hanks of black, three of white, three of pink, three of blue, and three of yellow. Set up fifty stitches for each strip, and make the strips each a yard and a half long. Crochet together with black, and finish with a deep fringe.
A small photograph on an easel, a growing plant, an album filled with stamps, a handkerchief case made of crocheted worsted over silesia or muslin, a scrap-book filled with selections—any little thing, in fact, which says, "I love you," is a fit and graceful Christmas gift.