Just discernible in the distance is the second war Christmas. One of life's disadvantages in Shanghai is being compelled to take thought for the year's festivals for so long and therefore so often. If closely in contact with the "homelands," as they are invariably called in public utterance, though never in human experience by any normal person in everyday life, one barely finishes meditating on one Christmas before the next to suggest itself. The best way to get
necessary, fix up, its passage home and sit of the mee is to g out and be Wwhaterer back to await due révognition of this thoughtfulness.
Everything is ready. in the shops. A preliminary canter round will be suggestive and pleasurable. The peculiar circumstances in which the "homelands" which are still get-at-able stand may guide our purchasing. There are those happily still able to indulge frivolous or cultivated hopes regarding Christmas parcels. Others may-conceivably have developed a more utilitarian outlook. Air raid shelter habitues may find an eiderdown of more immediate value.than a jade pendant this Christmas and it would cost you less. All these little adjustments should be given consideration.
Untrammelled at: the moment is the gift outlook for lands where life is still normal. Opportunity gives a friendly poke in the ribs and should be grasped. One thing is sure: this Christmas more especially gifts from Shanghai will be given a welcome in every "homeland"—the uncertainties of the moment having lifted Shanghailanders back from the somewhat unwonted position of slightly sybaritic onlookers at excitement to their more usual level of: expectant - heroics. Which 18 very gratifying—or is it?
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.