"Gifts I could do without?" smiled the American Consul-General "Why I shouldn't want to give up any of my Christmas presents."
"No cigars?" we queried, mindful of the perennial jokes on that theme.
"No indeed, as a non-smoker I can accept any brand with perfect calmness. As for the friends to whom T offer them—well, that' another story!"
"And can you be both polite and truthful in' acknowledging your Christmas remembrances?" Wwe insisted, cynically.
"Yes, No. Er—Woll, I couldn't do without any of the gifts that were prompted by the genuine Christmas feeling. A card that "shows real friendliness is worth more than perfunctory present hundred times the that cost a mount, I which it is sent,' as the man said about the brandied peaches."
"The kind of gift I just hate," cortinned Mr. Cunningham, more seriously, "is\ a gift which has nothing to recommend it but its' cost. Fortunately I am seldom embarrassed by receiving such tokens, but almost everyone can. recall being made the unwilling' recipient of a gift which had no affection behind it, a gift which burdened you with' its manifest expense, a gift which to return in kind would have been an extrawwanee, to say nothing of its being insincerity. No, I don't want to be placed under obligations which. cannot whole-heartedly return. It's taking an unfair advantage of the holiday season to burden a man with an.over-weight of gratitude.
"More Blessed to Receive"—Sometimes "This whole subject of Christmas giving needs a new spirit. If the observance of the day degeates into a mere—swepping' about of gifts there is nothing. to it but commercialism,—the spending of money which could be much better used. Fully to enter into, the spirit of the day you ought to at least one present which you Know cannot be returned. On the other hand—and this is really harder—you ought to be willing to receive gifts sometimes from those to whom you have sent nothing. This balancing of the Christmas ledger to be sure that you give only to those who will give to you in return is not in harmony with the true spirit of the season.
"One of my friends at home once gave a Christmas dinner to the "newsies' in his city. Those boys had the time of their life, and my friend did too, Take the Ricsha 'Mission Fund for which the 'North China' receives contributions every year—I'd far rather that friends should gi loving thought and send a cheque to the Mission or to any other of th splendid institutions of Shangh than that they should reverse the process. Yes, I mean it. If I hear that my Christmas present has been sent out to the Kings' Daughters' Convalescent Home I'll be that much better pleased.
"But don't run away with the idea that I can do without the gifts of those who give spontaneously and sensibly or that I want to denature the day in any way. Presents for children—always; for the family—yes; for friends—perhaps, But the present of ceremony, the present that burdens one with an obligation, resent that expresses no good
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.