The San Francisco call., 1896-12-25
CHRISTMAS IN CALIFORNIA.

Christmas in England has been cele-
brated by the best efforts of her genius in
every art from pointing to poetry. Her
greatest novelists have delighted to write
Christmas stories, her loftiest singers
have sung Christmas songs, and her mas
ter painters have wed with one another
in producing pictures of Christmas cheer
and revelry. As a result of all these ef-
forts the fame of Christmas time in Eng
land is worldwide, and wherever books
are read men and women are familiar
with the sports, the games, the music, the
solemn services in the churches and all
that goes to make up the Joy of the season
in that country.
Christmas in California has not been
made so famous as that in England. We
have not yet produced the great poets,
novelists and painters who are to make
our festival familiar to all the world.
Nevertheless it needs no gift of prophecy
to foretell the coming of the time when
Christmas in this land of ours will be as
widely known and more favorabiy re-
garded than even that OF the land of
which Milton sung and Dickens wrote.
Our climate at this season is far more pro-
pitious to every form of enjoyment than
that of England and there is scarcely
any conceivable method of cele ebrating
the day that cannot be carried out in this
State to better advantage than anywhere
else on earth.
The people of California appreciate the
bounty which nature has bestowed upon
the Christmas season in their State. They
have drawn inspiration from the climate,
and have become more joyous at Christ
mas time than the people of any other
section of our country. AS Mr.. Haweis
said: Sound to the core is the way the
San Franciscans celebrate Christmas"
Mr.. Haweis spoke of this City because
this was the place in which he saw Christ.
mas celebrated, but his words would have
been equally true had they applied to
Californians of every district from the
mountains to the sea.
When our holiday season has been fitly
sung and described it will win the ad-
miration of the world and attract to us
travellers and treasure-seekers from all
lands. There is scarcely any Joy to which
the human heart is attuned that cannot
be found here, when once the influence of
Christmas has turned the minds OF CALI
fornlans away from business and set them
free to indulge in all the activities of
social life. The time is not far distant
when our holiday season, beginning with
Christmas and continuing to New Year.
day, will be followed by a succession of
carnivals and festivities of all kinds, from
those of ice palaces to those of flower
gardens, which will last the whole winter
long and merge into the fetes OF May.
California, we may fairly claim, is des-
tined to be the scene OF the finest delights
of the human race. This much is made
evident by the fervor with which its peo-
pie are already beginning to celebrate fes-
tivals of all kinds. 1t will be made mani
fest by the universally of the Joy of the
Callfornians to-day. In no other COM
muEity will the rejoicing be SO common
among all classes or so full of abounding
vitality. The California Christmas will
yet be renowned in song and story as the
fullest happiness of humanity and the
glory of the earth.