[Illustration]

Being a Word of Much Needed Advice

Christmas is the birthday of our Lord, upon which we celebrate God’s ineffable gift of Himself to His children.  No human soul has ever been able to realize the full significance of that gift, no heart has ever been glad enough to contain the joy of it, and no mind has ever been wise enough to express it.  Nevertheless we powerfully appreciate the blessing and would fain convey it fitly.  Therefore to commemorate that great gift the custom of exchanging tokens of love and remembrance has grown until it has become well nigh universal.  This is a day in which we ourselves crave, as never at any other time, happiness and peace for those we love and that ought to include everybody, for with the angelic message in our ears it should be impossible to hate any one on Christmas day however we may feel before or after.

But despite the best of wills almost inevitably Christmas in many instances has created a burdensome demand.  Perhaps by the method of exclusion we shall find out what Christmas should be.  It is not a time for extravagance, for ostentation, for vulgar display, it is possible to purchase pleasure for someone else at too high a price to ourselves.  To paraphrase Polonius, “Costly thy gift as thy purse can buy, rich but not expressed in fancy, for the gift oft proclaims the man.”  In making presents observe three principal facts; the length of your purse, the character of your friend, and the universal rule of good taste.  Do not plunge into extravagance from which you will scarcely recover except in months of nervous strain and desperate financial struggle.  On the other hand do not be mean and niggardly in your gifts.  Oh, not that; avoid selfishness at Christmas, if at no other time.  Rather no gift at all than a grudging one.  Let your offerings represent yourselves and your affections.  Indeed if they do not represent you, they are not gifts at all.  “The gift without the giver is bare.”

And above all banish from your mind the principle of reciprocity.  The lex talionis has no place in Christmas giving.  Do not think or feel that you must give to someone because someone gave to you.  There is no barter about it.  You give because you love and without a thought of return.  Credit others with the same feeling and be governed thereby.  I know one upon whose Christmas list there are over one hundred and fifty people, rich and poor, high and low, able and not able.  That man would be dismayed beyond measure if everyone of those people felt obliged to make a return for the Christmas remembrances he so gladly sends them.

In giving remember after all the cardinal principle of the day.  Let your gift be an expression of your kindly remembrance, your gentle consideration, your joyful spirit, your spontaneous gratitude, your abiding desire for peace and goodwill toward men.  Hunt up somebody who needs and who without you may lack and suffer heart hunger, loneliness, and disappointment.