Evening star., 1901-12-28
NOT THE REAL THING
New York's Christmas Seems Hollow
to Visiting Stranger.
fHB DIFFICULTIES OF SANTA CLAUS
He Can Only Reach Flat Dwellers
through Steam Pipes.
THE SEASON OF CHARITY
Special Correspondence of The Evening Star.


To one born and raised in a smaller
city in which there is a high and progress
slve development of the family and home
and-fireside spirit, there is bound to be no
ticeable indefinible yet persistent note
of sadness running through the holiday
symphony of New York city. The holiday
season doesn't seem to be the same old
thing in New York. The homely cheer of
the period. the fading, even temporary of
the years depressions before the cosy glow
of the joyous time, the mutual warming
up to each other on the part of everybody,
the erasure of each others big and little
griefs by, the common sentiment of help
for ail-these seem 70 the exile in New
York to be absent manifestations of the
holiday season in the American metropolis.
Nor, as a matter of fact, are they absent
simply in the more or less lonesome i'm
agination of the exile. The family spirit
of New York fickers into a smaller and
DINNER fame as the mightiness of the COM
munlty increases, and there are not lack
ing sociologists who apprehend the early
arrival of the time when there will be
more selfish individualism in New York
than there Is today in Paris. The holiday
spirit is SO ineXtricably linked to what is
termed the family sentiment that the won
der is small that there is SO little Of the
old tribal, get-together glamour of the holi-
day season here in the view of one who
has participated in the genuine holiday
spirit in communities where family ties are
less elastic or brittle.
What is to be expected in the way of the
cid holiday spirit from little men and
women who are necessarily taught to be-
lieye that Santa Claus mraculousy
squeezes himself and his pack into a COM
pass two inches in diameter and thus forces
his way through the steam pipes into the
flats where the stockings are hanging?
shrunken Santa Claus of that sort first stirs
the disappointment, and then arouses the
skepticism of children to whom his shrivel-
ed picture is necessarily presented-and it
Is perhaps fair to say that at least nine
out of ten of all the children in New York
have to reluctantly accept the steam-pipe
Santa Claus for the obvious reason that
the flats or tenements they live in are
uhprovided with chimneys for the accom-
modation of the old-fashioned Kriss Krin-
gle. whose operations they see portrayed
in the picture books.
Pathetic Pictures Sketched.
There couldn't be anything much more
pathetic-pitiable, in truth-than the efforts
of moderateiy-weif-to-do families that have
lately removed to New York from other
and more homely communities to preserve,
in tiny fiat, the holiday traditions upon
which they have been brought up. The
holly and mistletoe shriyeling in the heat
waves of clanking steam pipes, the heroic
efforts to stuff thoughtful and inqusitive
children with all sorts of quickly faxed
ideas to the changeful habits Of the old
gift bringer when he reaches big cities, the
basting of the turkey in a gas range in
stead of in one Of those good old things
once known as cook stoveS-theSe are the
merest impressionistic and random sketches
of the dismal imitation Of the old holiday
idea which thousands Of newcomers in New
York are forced to arrange If they and
their children are to enjoy any holiday
idea at all.
There are hundreds of thousands of New
Workers, men and women, who, while they
make good or fair livelihoods, partake alb
solutely not at all in the cheer Of the holi-
day season, except in so far as they warm
up a bit upon the receipt of little gifts
through the mails or the express COM
panies. You'll see them thoughtfully
munching their Thanksgiving and Christ
mas and New Year dinners In the res
taurants most Of them alone, and with
that infallibe nimbus of sadness upon them
which so plainly spells exile" Hundreds
of thousands of them partake of the grisy
holiday gayety of the boarding house din
ner. If there is anything more cheerless,
outside of an unwarmed cell in a country
calaboose. than even a good boarding house
dinner on a holiday, when you can almost
see the think waves Of every man and wo-
man around the table reverting to holiday
dinners of the real, Sure-enough sort that
they've previously enjoyed, then 1t is hard
to imagine. -.----.
When the matter is reflected upon 1t Is
not, after all, surprising that the police
records show that four-fifths of the persons
who embark on colossal Christmas and
New Year sprees in New York are folks
who came here from other places-the ex-
lies aforesaid. The holiday period of New
York looks so blue and hopeless to them
that they almost inyountarily seek the
foolish route to forgetfulness.
Incidents of the Season