Ghristmas and the New Year are over, and their celebrations things of past—for most of us, that!
for some the gaiety ha not yet, ended. Children's parties! are still la full swing. Anxious: mothers are stil looking. apprebensively at the, slowly diminishing array of invitation cards; amahs ull reaping golden opportuni to exchange gossip while thelt, small chi indulge in hilarious games of hide-and-seck or nuts and: may. And the children themselves have, not yet quite exhausted the ply of crackers, conjurors, and cream cake.
Children's parties have " peculiar] attraction for me. The small guests seem to enjoy themselves. 30, Wholeheartedly, and it is amusing! to watch the' different "ways. yyhlch they" respond xo gale. There is always the fat little boy who spends the time munching his way solemnly through large slices of cake. There 1s. generally the sty litle ie "who, i an any self-consciousness, " refuses to Jo in any of the games; and there is quite frequently the child—who, feminine. sex-twho suis or bursts regret to say, is generally of the
into tears if she docs not win any] of the games, There is alwa Supersabundance of toys, crackers) and. food.
The Contrast 1 happened, the other visit a certain school for. poor children Which isa well-known Shanghai institution kept by] nurse-the Institut de Saint Joseph, Tt happened also that it was their 'Christmas Tree Day', and the children, who are all either orphans for—which is more often the ease—abandoned by their parents, have this party every year. In most repects it resembled any party given for poor children, but the thing that Interested me most was the array' toys that were laid at the base of tie' Christmas -tree—one for each child, 'The nuns could not afford to buy toys for their hundred and thirty little inmates, 0 they had to rely on their own ingenuity tomake a suitable itt' for each child.
Apart from a few which had been donated, all the toys had been made the huns themselves. Old eard= board: boxes Zormed. the basis for most of them; some, covered in gay baper, were made to represent Foams With perhaps "tiny celluloid doll Seated In the centre. - Others consisted of old broken toys, long discarded by some rich child and font to the instit Heads had boon" carefully " stuck together broken arms. and legs made. whole with "glue, and: miniature clothes fade out of odd scraps of material Yet, in spite of it all, uch was the skill of the nuns that'each toy made an attractive and desirable present, But that was not all, On the long bare tables that were laid for tea a eoluted paper cap was each plate, "The children, said the nun, loved these caps, more than anything, but. at the end of the party ench child had to give up its ap.0 that it could be tised again for next year's party, At the words! vision of the eouniless caps that must have been taken from crackers this Christmas and left to be thrown, avery Cly the house-boy, ernie before ame. The. nun continued. to spe She asked if" by" any chance 1 "had any old cardboard boxes, or "better "still chocolate boxes with "pretty covers," but were empty: if-s0, though it was too late then to make use-of them, could 1 rauld keep them to make the chile dren's toys for next I thought then of the hundreds of superfluous. presents that are re-revived each year by small children my acquaintance; T remembered he numerous chocolate boxes. that had thrown away." So T-tried to redeem my thoughtlessness by pro-rising her as many toys and boxes could collect, for her next "Christmas tree day."
You are thinking perhaps that all this. is a little irrelevant; that it has nothing to do_with the parties and social celebrations that T'should ihe writing about.
has very Looking back on it, I cannot he thinking that there is something listinetly one-sided about the way in which we celebrate the birth of Christ.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.