The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1887-12-24 00:00:00

THE GREAT DAY OF THE YEAR.

CHRISTMAS, whether it comes on Sunday or
on any other day of the week, is the great
jour de ran in most countries embraced with-
in the wide bounds of Christendom. It is
looked forward to with joyous anticipations,
and looked back upon with pleasant remem-
brances which often create premature long-
ings for its return. These longings are par-
ticularly noticeable in the case of children
who, even amid the gladsome brightness of
summer time, when they have ample oppor-
tunities for making sport when the sun
shines, count the months between July and
December, and wish they were not so many
in number. They can forgive winter all
the bereavements inflicted on them in the
loss of flowers, carolling birds, shimmering
leaves, and warm sunshine, and all the dis-
comforts connected with short days, dark
cloud-laden skies, biting frosts, and chilblains,
for the sake of Christmas and its manifold
enjoyments, which include rooms brightly
decorated with holly and missletoe, good
cheer, choice gifts, dances, and gleeful games.
The striking out of Christmas from the
calendar would cast a shadow of gloom over
the year, and cause the burden of ex:stence
hi the experience of myriads of human beings
to be heavier to bear. When the 25th of
December, the most endeared date in the
round of the year falls on a Sunday, as it
does in the present season, the religious
commemorations associated with the festival
of Christmas have the most appropriate
time for their observance, and are joined in
by augmented numbers of worshippers. It
is on such a happy junctuve of days that
"the glad tidings of great joy" find their
fittest expression in the resonant and pulsat-
ing music of the Christmas chimes. As
Christian civilisation, which is the direct
outcome of the original angelic message of
goodwill to all mankind, is the best pro-
moter of friendly intercourse among the
nations of the earth that come under its
influence, the great commemorative festival,
in which religious observances play their
part, is fitly associated with the full and
warmer flow of affectionate feeling in fami-
lies, the heartier recognition of the claims of
kinship, the cordal interchange of good
wishes and hospitalities between friends and
acquaintances, and the generous distribution
of charitable gifts and comforts among the
necessitous poor. All the associations of
Christmas, especially as regards the display
of kindlier feelings between man and man,
render it eminently desirable that the
childen of poverty should benefit by the
bountifulness of the "gracious time," and
share in the fullness of its joy. The festive
gatherings at Christmastide are varied in
character, and each possesses an interest of
its own. The family party, sitting round
the table well garnished with good cheer, is
a happy one when none of its members have
yet gone from under the domestic roof, and
still happier when those of their number
are in situations at a distance have come
home to take their old places, and make the
broken circle whole again. The youths at-
tending :public schools of the Eton and
Rugby type who have been set free for their
winter spell of holidays show unmistakable
signs, by the ample justice they do to the
substantial fare set before them, that study
has not spoiled their appetites, and that they
feel immense relief at having got rid of their
tasks andtaskmasters at the festive season. In
case their exuberant spirits should tempt
them to go beyond decorous restaints the eye
of the paternal host keeps watch like a
sentinel star on the circulation of the wine
decanters after the dessert is laid on the
table. At family reunions the absent
members, who have gone too far away to
return home, are not forgotten, and their
healths and welfare are cordially pledged.
Sometimes there are pathetic absences,
when death has made blanks in family
circles, and sometimes also there are
are pleasant augmentations to the annual
reunions when sons-in-law and daughters-
in-law, who bring grandchildren along with
them, take their places at the Christmas
board, forming a goodly company withal.
Gracious complacent smiles light up the
grandfartherly and grandmotherly faces of
host and hostess when they survey the
happy gathering, and mark with satisfaction
and pardonable pride how a triplet
cf generations, with their distinctive
characteristics, can be represented at
one time on the domestic stage. In
many households, where the cost of enter-
tainment does not require rigid consideration
the hospitalities of the season are extended
to ielatives near and remote, friends of long
standing, and troops of invited guests, who
are all pressingly enjoined to make and feel
themselves at home during their stay. So
strong is the homing instinct in the hearts
of Scandinavians and Germans that they
often travel thousands of miles over laid and
soa, in wintry weather, to spend their Yule-
tide with old friends and acquaintances amid
the familiar scenes of childhood in their loved
native lands. The sons and daughters of
Old England who have gone abroad, though
they -l'iver lose their patriotic and filial at-
tachu.. nit to the Mother Country, celebrate
their Aristmas in distant colonies as they
were :: -lustomed to do at home, even when
the eel. .nation takes place, as in Australia,
in the •-:ammertide heat of the Southern
Hein; ~ .c3re. Passengers and crews on board
our s.. on the ocean highways, and
solclie our military stations in all parts
of the id, join in the Christmas festivities
with a:, . :eh fervour as they would do if
they we. • pledging healths and singing the
song of t ) "jolly good fellow" under their
native skits.