Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1878-12-25
Christmas Again.

That the "merry Christmas season has
come again needs no proof from the calen-
dar. And with il comes the gift-giving
which naturally grows out of the great
event celebrated And thus our holiday
season receives a beautiful and hallowed in
auguration.
It is wonderful to contemplate the rapid
ity with which the custom of observing
Christmas has gained foothold in New
England. A single generation since 1t was
almost unknown. The ready heartiness with
which the descendants of the Puritans have
laid aside their prejudiees and joined with
the rest OF the Christian world in the OBJ
servance of this beautiful custom, goes far
to show that there is something in the event
COMMUNICATED which meets at once the
deepest wants and the highest aspirations
of the human soul
Children especially look forward to Christ
mas as the gift-period of the year. with great
expectations, which are seldom altogether
disappointed. There is something beauti-
fully appropriate in custom that associates
the choicest gifts of parental affection and
friendship with the birth of Christ-God's
greatest gift to the world. And it is also a
mark of Christian feeling to desire to give
good gifts to children, and practice self-de-
NAL in order to make them happy on an oc-
casion which ought to fill all hearts with
sacred joy.
But there is such a thing as OVERRIDING
even so beautiful an exhibition as giving.
The tyranny of custom seldom works greater
wrong than here. To do as others do, for
no better reason than because they do it, is
always foolish and often unjust. To use
money not your own in order to give lib
orally exhibits sad confusion of moral
ideas. Give no gifts unless you can pay for
them, and that without embarrassment to
yourselves. Love worth having can take no
pleasure in receiving a gift which costs you
so dear Let the beautiful custom of giving
gifts be preserved by all means, but the gift
should not only be within your means, but
should in all cases be good, and useful, and
DtduJllul'-llhc bht lCiNihc piitt ehO
season and custom commentaries. In these
pinching times the means are often too linn
tied to satisfy all our desires in respect to
giving. And yet, when people are filled
with the spirit of Christmas, their gifts of
course springing from genuine, selfdenying
affection, they will not be wholly restrained
from making them.
There is still another thought connected
with this subject which should not be for
gotten; and we find it so well expressed by
another that we copy it " AS we go on in
life and its cares multiply; as we feel the
rigors and hardships which come upon men
and women; as we are initiated into the
deeper sadder meanings of human existence,
we cannot be as gay and thoughtless as the
children are. But all the more we should
be tender and tolerant of their very thought
lessness nor should we dare to obscure it
by our soberer and less sanguine feeling.
The mere utilitarian should retire into OBJ
security at Christmas. Parents who buy
schoolbooks and overcoats and thick shoes
at Christmas, pretending that these are
gifts, when the little folks know perfectly
well that they would have had them if
Christmas had never come, make grave
mistake. Of course, if there be no margin
whatever for presents, or if it is question
between the overcoat and the pair of skates,
and the lad cannot have both, you must buy
the coat. But then there should be perfect
openness about the matter, and the children
should understand the state of the case. If
they are taken into the honorable confidence
of their parents they will not grieve, though
the gifts of the season be nothing more
than popcorn, peanuts and red apples, with
a candy-pull and plenty of fun on Christ
mas Eve"
And now we wish our readers MERRY,
MERRY CHRISTMAS. 1t comes amid the
SHOWS and storms of December. But it
warns our hearts as with the glow of sum-
mer, and teaches us the great lesson of his
life whose birth it celebrates-the remem-
brance of the poor. The birth into our
hearts of kindness and mercy to the miser-
able and suffering creates the only absolute
certainty Of merry Christmas.