Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1901-12-25
Christmas Giving.

Today witnesses the elimination OF
what has been the greatest season of
gift buying ever known in the history
of the United States. All through the
Icn gth and breath of our broad, happy
lana, eager millions with money in
their hands, have thronged the stores,
big and little, in quest Of gifts. 1t has
been a sort of happy saturnalia OF I'M
selfishness. Some estimates make the
amount of Christmas buying fully 40
per cent larger than on any previous
year Few indeed are those who have
not participated therein; fewer still,
let us hope. are those who do not in
some way share in the kindly remem-
brance Of the buyers, who pluck no
fruit from the Christmas trees, share
not in the rapture which attends the
emptying of well filed stocking, nor
participate otherwise in the shower of
gifts. For the Christmas spirit more
and more, as years 90 by, takes on the
enduement of charitv-of a charity
which will not willingly allow the day
to pass with any man, woman or child
unremembered, if within the reach of
an all-embracing good will.
One of the sweetest manifestations
of the Christmas spirit is that found
in the seeking out of the lonely, of
those from any cause liable TO be neg
lected and making them participants
in the distributions, either public or
private 1t isn't the value of the re
membranes thus bestowed which inn
parts to them their chief beneticence;
it is the signaling Of love and brother
hood across the boundary lines of SO
cial distinctions or say rather the
wiping out of those distinctions for
the time being, that none may feel that
he or she is ''unfriended." 1t would be
well, however, if larger proportion of
the sums spent for gifts could be de
voted to this type of giving the type
which expects nothing in return be-
yond the JOY of making others happy.
1t would be well too, if organization
should earlier lay its plans, so that
when the day of distribution comes all
the highways apd byways and lodging
house deserts where the lonely and I'M
fortunate Turk may have been fully ex-
plored, and provisions made for re-
membranes to those who cannot be
lured to public distributions.
But after all that has been said of
the broader manifestations of the
Christmas spirit and ofthe desirability
OF charging the proportion of our
funds bestowed upon such manifesto
tions. it remains that Christmas viii
p obably ever be with Christian peoples
tn great annual Festival of the Family
Affections The gift-g giving custom
with its attendant study of the wants
a III tastes Of family associates. its
m lltifarious tasks Of preparations, its
loosening Of purse strings for objects
other than simply utilitarian, its edu-
eating influence in the direction Of
t lste and discrimination, and above all
its effective assaults on selfishness and
its exaltation of self-sacrifice is a.
grand instrument for cementing fam
lily ties and sweetening the family life.
Who can count the arrangements and
that have been healed, the
loves which have been revived, the
restored to or introduced
into family life, by the interchange of
Christmas tokens? The Christmas
Christmas feast, Christ
mas worship each of these bears its
own peculiar beneficence; but the
Christmas gift, this it is that brings
brightest benson to the home.