St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1892-11-27

Already the shops are beginning to
fill up with stores of treasure against
the coming of the holiday season, aud
every one of you is counting her pocket
money and trying to solve that eternal
feminine problem-how to make five
dollars do the work of ten.
Now, my dears, want to give you a
bit of a sermon about the giving OF
presents at Christmas time. 1t is a
commendable spirit and pretty senti-
ment that makes you commemorate the
birth of the Savior by gifts, but remem-
Der that it is the sentiment and not the
cost of the gift that gives it value.
To know that ones friends re-
member one is what makes the
present priced. and the woman who is
displeased because the gift you send her
is an inexpensive one, deserves to find
in her stocking on Christmas day only
some ashes and a bunch of switches.
Don't give costly presents unless you
are rich, and don't expect costly pres
ents.
The ideal Christmas gift, my dears, is
something you have made yourself.
The merest trifie wrought by friends
hands has about it a dearness that no
costly article purchased ready made at
the shops can nave, and there are so
many little things to be made with just
a little trouble. that no one of you need
go amiss. If you are in doubt, make
sofa pillows. NOBODY has too many of
them.
Now. for the children. Christmas is
pre-eminently a Sc ason for them, for on
the first Christmas the stamp of holiness
was forever set on motherhood and
childhood. Do let the little ones have
a royal time. Let them believe in Santa
Claus and the fairies, and in everything
else that is sweet and healthful and
tends to cultivate that Imagination
which fin de steele children so sadly
lack.
And, | beg you. do leave something
to those childish imaginatiOnS. Real
steam engines and photograph dolls
are all very we'll as scientific curiosities,
but don't buy them for the children.
Leave something to be new and sur
prising when the children grow up.
DON'T let them "knoW it all" just yet
awhile. The simplest gift sometimes
isathe very one their childish hearts
have been longing for. | remember
once seeing little girl whose parents
and relatives had spent enough on her
gifts to have kept q poor family in
comfort month, lying prone on
the bed, crying as if her heart
| would break, because among all her
splendid gifts there was not to be found
a little monkey on stick that she had
seen III a certain shop. and that cost
only five cents. A little doll whose
clothing can be made of the scraps from
your new gown by the girls busy fin
gers will give her more pleasure in one
week than any of these splendid Gre
aturesS with real hair and eyes that can
turn will in a year. Do you remember
| that pathetic little incident in that
| sweetest of girls story, Little Women
how. when the older girls saw little
| Beth about to take her daily walk, they
| peeped to see what she had under her
cloak and found, not the lovely big doll
| that some one had just given her, but
| the poor disfigured little one. clad in a
/ frock made from piece OF JOe's old
| dress by the little mother herself.
You may give your boy splendid
| rocking horse, and, no doubt, my dearS,
| he will eXclaim delightedly over it; but
| he won't get the solid satisfaction out
| of it that he would out of a pair of relns
| such as old-faShiOned mothers made out
| of carpet binding furnished with buck
| les from the caSt-off trousers OF father
| and the older boys. Just furnish him
| with string and let him loose among
| the sitting room chairs and see how
| Quick he will have coach and six that
| will rival the finest one the lord mayor
| of London ever rode in. What names
he will give them, what wonder
full journeys he will take with Bessie
or James and the whole family OF dolls,
and perhaps the kitten and the poodle
| hot m
! dears, as said before, cultivate in your
| children, by means of their toys and
books. that wonderful facultY,the imagl,
nation. You don't know what hard
| places it Will help them over by and by
| With all your planning of gifts. dom
oyerstep the amount you can afford tC
spend. For. if you do. the demon Of
| debt will sit on your shoulder, and his
whispers will spoil the whole thing
Put care away, and, with your children
ENJOY the sweetest holiday of the year