New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1876-01-06
ANNIVERSARIES AND HOLIDAYS.

The holidays are over at last the boys
and girls have gone back to school; drawing
rooms are cleared of the last reminder of New
Years feast and fnery; meals and servants
have fallen back into the regular routine /;
Christmas greens are faded in the churches;
the baby's toys are broken in the nursery, and
the miraculous Christmas tree lies on top of
the ashman's cart. The father of the family.
who was the jolliest of old fellows for week,
gloomily turns over sheaves of bills as he
drives down to his Office in the morning,
having left his wife at the same dreary bust
ness, wondering whero expenses can be
nipped or shrunken for this coming
year. The holidays are remembered as
CHEEKY halt in an exceedingly dull,
mon0tonous journey. What common sense is
there in this Why should we, all of us,
midde-aged father, mother, grocer, doctor,
shopkeeper John the coachman, and Betty
the cook-everybOdy, in short, except the young
people who are in love-willfully make the
tourney dull and monOtonous Christmas and
New Years were actually days like other days.
1t took but few trihing matters to alter
them into what they were. common spruce
tree from the woods, with few bright bits
of gauze, spangle, and candles hung on it;
dinner a little out of the usual way hearty
greetings to this one or that; call on few
friends on New Years Day, little hospitality
offered. n cordial hand-shake for neighbOr to
whom we had felt bitterly in the old year, and
behold, the thing was done The two COM
mon muddy days stood apart from the dead
level of life.
of course we know il was the underlying
meaning of the two anniversaries which gave
these trines significance; but how many other
days have also their great and beautiful mean
ings, which we ignore or have wholly forgot
ten There is growing disposition in this
country to restore old holidays to notice; they
are made more memorable for rs with every
year. Nothing can be WISER even as mere
matter of education. The keeping of the sev
eral anniversaries of the Centennial year will
teach American boys and girls the history of
the Revolution as they never could have
learned il from the pages OF Sparks or Ban
croft the fast of Good Friday, the cessation
of ordinary traffic on that day, the closing
of banks, shops, markets, make the death
of Christ a real thing to the lad who
has been perhaps too apt to consider it a matter
which peculiarly concerned his mother and the
Church. There is no reason why other ami
yersaries should not recall ennobing thoughts,
or the lives of men who have greatly lived and
died not only to the young people, but 70 all OF
lis and il is puerile to sneer ut such observances
as sentimental or papstcal. There are many
half-forgotten anniversaries which 1t might
be well 10 restore. Among these is Handsel
Monday, in which every employer made gilt
or offered some token Of good will to his
laborers; Twelfth Day and its hospitable rites,
with which our readers are familiar; the feast
of sowing the grain. in which fires were kin
died by the country people on every hilltop,
and the evening gwen UP to rejoicing, IN token
of the sowing of the good seed by Christ and
His APOSTLES, one fire being extinguished as an
emblem of Judas and his evil end; and
Mothering Day, when every mother received
gifts from all her children. When she was old
and feeble and these tokens of lifelong love
reached her from the children who had wan
dcred far Off, this custom had peculiar
beauty and significance.
We need not multiply the list of these ami
vcrSaries. 1t is enough to say that their OBJ
seryance, or any other observance which would
lift life, especially for children, out of dull
"mechanic round" give it spring, energy,
heartiness, ard good cheer, would be wise
change in our social conduct.