HORNING, DECEMBER J 3, 1908
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J71 ASIUONS change so, it's hard' to
fi keep track of them. A few years
?o n? ar a7 or disillusionizing
childhood, on the principle that it is a hard
world at best, and the quicker the children
realized that they were facing harsh facts the
better for them. And now, the good old saint
has come into his own again; and the children
are to be handed back their sweet faith as a
toy too popular to be flung aside among the
other wrecks made by the modern iconoclastn.
When Santa Claus comes around this
year he will find himself confronted by the
penalties he must pay for his more than lavish
munificence in the past. It is glorious, indeed,
to have a 'perennial treasure house of play
things wherewith to buy the jubilant laughter
of the young; but it costs more in the future
to spoil a child than it does to-do the spoiling ,
in the present
if the children of today are not spoiled
it must be only because they'rp all so very,
very good that it's impossible to spoil them.
Never in the world's history has childhood
reveled in such gorgeous Christmastides,
when, for the rich, wealth in fortunes is often
times -laid out and, for the poor, the charities
of thousands and the investments of millions
join with untold talent and inventive skill in
the endeavor to supply to Santa Claus the
playthings he must work with.
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But soon there developed an ascending gcale of en
tertainment, from the magic lantern that waa, twenty
year a ago, what the cinematograph la now, to the
extravagantly planned affair where the children are the
audience, while hired performers give a whole vaudeville
ehow and th youthful critic are nicely particular aa
to the quality of the legerdemain and the eklll of per
forming animals.
Of late years the ajood sense of English society has
been turning away from such formal entertainments,
"1". !"vertmT to those features of children's parties in
which the young people themselves make their
pleasure. v
So children's (fames have come more and more Into
vogue, and that hostess has been most highly esteemed
who could devise the form of enjoyment that should
be most absorbing, most picturesque and moat harmless
In its excitement.
One charming Idea, which Is every little while re
vived at the CliriHtmas Eve party, Is called "The Spider's
Web."
A Christmas Eve partv would be a delusion and snare
if it failed to supply gifts to the guests. What Is
Christmas Eve for, anyway. If not for those glorious
surprises? The Christmas tree, however, has been flour
ishing so long as far back as the days of the Druids
that even in conservative Kngland it sometimes wears
an air of sameness.
So, In place of the. tree, the spider's web comes in.
When the hour for the gifts arrives the children are
admitted to oome large room where, from the ceiling,
an immense spider hangs, usually made of wire, although
his spldership often presents the tints of the rainbow
because of the parti-colored ribbons that cover his
monstrous body.
Attached to his many leg are spools or spindles,
every one holding the end of a thread or ribbon, to
be wound upon It as the child progresses to a greater
distance from the spider. At the other end of the
thread is fastened the gift its holder Is to receive.
Simple, Isn't It? Not a bit of it very Intricate and
complicated, even under the mildest of conditions.
The threads have been led in and around all the
articles of farnlture, up and down and around, to the
utmost extent of the grown-ups' Ingenuity, so that often,
although manv of the gifts are plainly in sight, no child
ran distinguish which Is the one belonging to his or her
particular string.
Above evervthlne-. tumultuous though the game may
he, It is a mortal sin if any child overturn or disturb a
single piece of furniture. That's a game for you, on a
Christmas Eve!
But the spider's web loses its novelty, too. And It
Isn't nearly so gorgeous as many people expect, these
in tender thraldom and redeems the grorgeousness of
the festival in America, its luxurious refinement ta
England, and its poor simplicity amid the poverty or
the Black Forest and the want of the Apennines,
Seen or unseen beside the burly Joviality of Santa Onus,
there is always present the radiant, sanctifying presence
of the Child. - - .
TftollbaE travel In tber
Hav8
HRiSTMAS travel In thT
old stage coach days!
How few there are who
remember the combined
discomforts - and Joy of
those long-gone day. ,
In the cities, electrlo
cars, electrically warm
ed, snatch us up from
pavements so scrupulous
ly scraped, under the dras
tic penalties of local ordi
nances, that within a few
hours of a snowfall, boys
have hard work finding
snow enough for a bob
sled; and those cars shuat
us to the doors of dwell
Insra that need only an
extra shovel of coal to feel like conservatories.
In the country, trains that are swift processions of
luxury whisk us to farmhouses or suburban residences
where the old-fashioned open fireplace is either an
arrheologlcal specimen or a modern affectation. Ilka
those red glass coals we see chillingly illuminated on
the illusive stage.
Where Is the Alfred flwynne Vanderbilt whd. evan
with such a record .as his recent Brighton coaching;
season behind him, would choose the box seat of an
old-fashioned stage coach for his Christmas journey
from New York to Tuxedo, and where are the hardy
passengers who would book places, inside or out. for
the trip from Lake Hopatcong to New Yorkf
That is as much an Impossible freak of "luxury"
today as It was a matter of necessity seventy years
o
F COURSE, the most elaborate aspects of all this
gorgeousness have developed In the one land
where nobody expects1 to be happy unless he is
happier than anybody else In the United States.
If we were to betake ourselves to the early home of
Santa Claus, and If we wars to take along with us the
average American child on whom the good saint has
bestowed his gifts for only the. few years necessary to
cement youthful loyalty to his patronage, we should see
one child at least euddimly afflicted with grave doubts of
the saintly perfection that ought to belong to him.
Surely, Santa Claus' charity ought to begin at home.
An American child in Germany would be astonished at
the moderate supply of Christmas playthings, and the
modest character they bear, when compared with the
wealth of toys Santa lavishes on this aide of the ocean.
It does seem strange that, with such a vast store of
gifts, he can't afford to treat the simple, faithful Ger
man children best of all.
But he doesn't. He doesn't treat any of them so well
as he does these very shrewd-eyed, shrewd-tongued little)
skeptics over here, tha last of all the world to com
under his loving, generous guardianship.
Can it be because) we materialistic Americans hava
all but forgotten that he is a Christian saint. Instead of
some sort of pagan providence, or god of good luck;
and that, eager for the tangible unrealities we crave, we
have lost the intangible realities that should be, after
all, Christmas' most valued gifts?
For the toys our children see and feel and play with.
"Indestructible" as we try to make them, last but a
little while in comparison with the unseen, intangible
spirit of Christmas itself, which, after all. Is the only
reaj reality that entera into the soul of childhood.
Perhaps the poorest, least lavish Christmas of the
world, in the material sense in which we regard the
festival. Is that which occurs in Italy; yet It is precisely
there, more than in any other country, that the beautiful
reality of Christmas Christianity is most faithfully
commemorated.
It is there that Santa Claus comes always with a
guide, companion and friend no less a personage than
the Divine Child Himself, returned for this one night
to earth in the form of a little boy, in order that He,
who bade the children come unto Him, shall direct the
saint in preparing their celebration over the anniversary
of His birth.
No child in Italy would dream of Banta Claus finding
his home and his playroom without the aid of the holy
Christ Child, any more than an American child would
dream of Santa being accompanied by any living being
except his nimble reindeer.
NEVER FORGETS THE DONOR
So the Italian child and, for that matter, many
more children of other nations on the European conti
nentmay break his toys and eat his Christmas cake;
but he never forgets the divine face of the other Child
who guided the Jovial donor to his door, however cruelly
In after years the world may break his manhood's toys
and gnaw at his manhood's heart.
Here, poor Santa has been separated from the One
Child whose love inspired him in his chosen work sep
s rated ever since hard Plymouth Rock was landed on by
the harder Pilgrim Fathers, who feared that the tough
fiber of their religion might be warped by even the most
lovely fanciea of the faiths they sought to put behind
them.
He has grown up with us into a distinctly unpoetlo
Santa, very much like the big, generous father who
gives us the nickel for ourselves when we get the nickel
for the missionary box, and paoks us off indulgently to
Sunday school, while be leans back to the comfort of
his cigar.
But what a generosity, whenever he isn't so strapped
himself that he has to worry about the bread and butter.
A George Gould, who happens to have the cash to 'spare,
has no trouble In arranging with Santa to act as chauf
feur for a tiny auto that has been specially built for
the Christmas trips of the Gould . children not a toy
auto, but a real, working machine that runs by its
own power and operates aa readily as papa's' big touring
car.
It is one of those magnificent Christmas gifts whose
practicability for road use raises them beyond the level
of mere, toys and makes Santa Claus look like a captain
of industry.
He Is relatively as munificent to the son of some clerk
on one of the Gould railroads, who, in the light of his
iather's modest Income, receives a gift even more gener
ates In the form of the foot treadle auto. It may cost
enly IS, against the children's real machine worth JSOO;
but the gorgeousness is there in a higher proportion
than that In which the millionaire employer indulges his
family Santa and himself.
There are rich men's children here who have received
whole railroads as Christmas gifts, not the rolling stock
and miles of tracks In which their parents act as direct- '
ors, but railroads in miniature and. not nearly so small
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days. One hostess decided that the animated dinner
would come pretty close to satisfying eyes that are
always bigger than stomachs; and she tried it, with
supreme success. So the animated dinner has become
popular.
On the table the originator of the idea set an enor
mous papier mache turkey, in which was the roast
turkey of toothsome reality; an enormous plum pudding,
big enough for a regiment, and containing the real
pudding that was to be eaten; and all the other viands,
on a scale proportionate.
Then she provided bonbons big enough for a child to
walk In; Christmas stockings, filled with gifts, that
would have fitted the famous seven-league boots of tbs
it, and of familiarising them with the practical working
of the calling for which it was intended they should be
qualified as men.
The doll's house, that edifice dear to the soul of
every girl and next in her affections to tho doll Itself,
has been made the prototype of a Christmas gift so
costly that only a mansion occupied by people of the
wealthier class could vie with it in outlay.
There have been dolls' houses which were large enough
and substantial enough 'to admit the doll's own little
mother in all their apartments, with furnishings of the
utmost splendor made to a corresponding scale in sire,
while the grounds around them, laid out on the
paternal acres, were parked and terraced with as much
skill as though the whole human family expected to be
suddenly dwarfed into HU'iputian stature and must re
move forthwith into the residence Santa had provided
for Yuletide.
It has been some time since New York welcomed Its
pioneer Christmas plays, those trade adventures In the
socialism of amusement; but American childhood has
taken to the delights of the theater with all the xest it
puts Into a diversion that Is supremely splendid.
TAKING LESSONS FROM ENGLAND
That is only one feature of the broader, more gor
geous Christmas brought by these later years to the
pleasuring of Uncle Sam's young ones. The children's
party is growing into the dignity of an American social
institution, a function" that has about it as much of
the form and ceremony as the ambitious elders feel they
dare load upon a rising generation already more than
amply sophisticated.
It is here to stay, an illuminating sign of the added
measure of enjoyment which Santa Claus. by reason of
his steadily increased munificence, is called upon to
provide.. .
i...H?Iei hwYfT' Africa is only taking apprentice
Yu'etldo pleasu,res from England, where, for
y'a, y'ar"i the Christmas festivities have been
ceMmonfal completely ordered as aourt
..J,HKi,E?n,1., L eJ?M cou,a Imagine Christmas coming
sround without the Christmas pantomime. The traditions.
ih.rV... TZ noary wan legends of the marvels
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ago. The traditions of those Jovial rides linger far
less splendidly in this country than in England. They
managed it better there, for in those days we were
Bttll the raw and poor pioneers, .who put up with our
crude realities, and drew our romance from abroad.
The Liverpool coach, the Chester coach, the Chel
tenham coach, the Norwich coach all the famous,
futile apologies for adequate transportation which in
clement England held in those times before steam
had worked out its destiny played a part in Christmas
cheer they never can play again.
And when the long, adventurous miles traversed at
last with their desperate chances of snowdrift and,
flood the Christmas guest descended at the crossroads.,
he was driven to manor house or country home, where
the struggle against the elements still went on by
night as well as day. No hot-water or steam pfpes
left the open fireplace or the glowing grate to lag
superfluous in room and hall. They had Ao glow ana
roar, or everybody froze to death.
It was glorious, but was it comfort? Surely not as
we know our comforts, with the mistress of the house
ready to discharge the man-of-all-work if the ther
mometer in the tiled bathroom shows one degree below
or above the sacred 70. : 1
Some of the cheeriest of Christmas traditions linger
about those old stage coaching days, when tha end of
a Journey was never in sight,' figuratively and liter
ally, until the lumbering coach drew up at its destine
tlon. But there were as merry Chrlstmases after thost
trips through storm and snowdrifts as have ever been
enjoyed since. .
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as one would imagine should be the sise of a Christmas thThitvb1en,rrougnt. forf the flight f childhood,
toy. , ' tal flf; i Au V a real a,rjr ta,e- -vnd lways a fairy
PyL ... .. . ?i.?r 5? " .to the pantomime in London, at
Those railroads have hat locomotives that . ware
equipped with the boiler and tender and ail the mechan
ical construction precisely like the huge monsters that
draw the private cars of their elders in the family. The
fift served the double, purpose ot supplying the Christ
mas toy most ardently desired by tha bojsj who wanted
Christmas; and there must be neither hread nor honn in
InAf.0"" that cannot muster, the) price of some sort of
In i past! pantomime before the Joyous season
.JlJ?iri, ,,efnd dear to childhood, have
been presented in Christmas pantomime there, during
turntsd, with the handnomu fairies they elooed with later
from "Little Julss Muflett," as gray old grandfathers
escorting the fairies' grandchildren to the newest, most
magnificent, most gorgeous, most marvelous, most spec
tacular pantomime, entitled "Babes In the Wood."
There, tq be strictly honest about it. is the true
origin of the "Christmas play" on this side of the At
lantic, which we imitators hava been making such an
enthusiastic fuss about.
It is the same with our children's Christmas parties.
We are only following the English, with whom, since
the middle age of Queen Victoria, the exaltation of the
child and the child's interests has been an increasing
fad. - " .
It used to be that, on' Christmas Eve, a simple
children's party, with a sufficient "refreshment" in the
way of cakes, candy and lemonade, was all that was
planned, and all that was expected by the children them
selves. In those houses where unusual wealth does not exist,
and : in those where children are still held to the old
rule of some degree of repression, the Christmas Eve
dance is regarded as enough in the way of relaxation
and (un. ,."
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fairy tale; knives and forks und spoons that might' have
been used by uie giant Fi-Fo-Fum.
The head of the house garbed himself as good old
Santa, some of the children were inserted in the bon
bons, others were given the huge cutlery to carry, and
others the stockings; and all. in Joyous procession,
wended their way to the 3robdignagian table, there to
enjoy the feact.
The wealthy English child learns early the office ot
charity, for there the Kiving of dole gracetully Is deemed
part of the responsibilities of riches.
Perhaps a little less avid aeisure of the wealth in the
first place, and a little more regard for the claims of
the poor might work better, aa making charity less
needful: but those proposals are grim , socialism and.
nasty revolution, out of place at Christmas time, when
every one makes the best of what he has.
And surely no poop waifs of the street, no Unsentl- :
mental Tommies arid practical Grizels from the aNeyl ...
1 of London today will look In the mouth of the fascinat
, ing gift horse and the rheautlfuT doll that the daughter
of the rich spares to them from her paradise beyond. V
' After all. end afteV all:' it- is that infinitely sweet
spirit of Christmas prsent which holds the whole world
dfeasts for IRoigalt ;
m w m vulju you u.e to mauigs in
'oval Christmas this
VsV yr? It's far easier than
jvu aiuKsmv tna ir immM
expensive.
First, put away from
you the toothsome thought
of the Christmas turkey.
"Royal blrdr Tutl The
royal bird is only and al
ways the swan. i
Call your young swan a
cygnet, and you hays the
royal Christmas dinner of,
the king of England,' duly
guaranteed by law and cus
tom that date back to the
ancient days when all game
was royal perquisite, and
mivhtv faw crftml thin, vS
tn earth and waters escaped the royal teeth.;
This year, at this time, the "king's swanmaster is
directing the slaughter of thirty young swans, or
cygnets, from among the royal birds, marked with
the royal double diamond, that help to lend plctur
esqueness to the Thames from Souihwark bridge u
to Henley. They weigh from fifteen to twenty pound-,
and are forwarded to Sandringham palace for tha'
fitting fcYth of the royal Christmas table, as it is by
royal precedent prescribed. All told. King Edward t
thus supplied with between 500 and 00 pounds p?
swan flesh, the royal delicacy par excellence durl
centuries past. . ,
Many of the birds he sends, in his turn, to mcmbts
of his immediate family.
The rest go to his personal friends, to whom t
receipt of a royal cygnet la the highest mark -f t
royal favor. It Is at those tables, far m.,r tlia,i
the rulers Christmas dinner, that the swan U m ,
highly, esteemed, for. to dine off royal swnn at ThrH-
mastlde is almost equivalent to dlnlnir with r,JV,4 ,,,
The ownership of the few swans now i ,
Thames Is'shared by the anrient ami liont.r W t '' -Company
and the eqwally anctont and h'nrai-,i vs..
ners' Company, permission to keep rvKiu ti nr. i ,
stream having been a in on r the fmi.in ei.M i . -,t
that made their forerunners in dyeing nn.i w) , ,
grandly loyal to the crown.