The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1905-12-17

fails to receive Christmas letter. ooh, [ say,
look again, won't you. You must have missed
it" is the plea, and the postmaster patiently
looks once more through the remaining mail hop
ing that he may have overlooked the letter asked
for. He hates to give No, for he appre-
ciates the heart-sinking and depression that goes
with it. ',~.,:. ...aa'.e...
It is not right in the heart of Dawson City or
Sitka or in any town of size that Christmas Day
is the most cherries, but miles away from even
a village of any pretension where Uncle Sam has
as yet been unable to wave his wand and bring
comforts of civilization, there the winter holi-
days have little to make them festive. But Arc
tic SHOWS have not frozen the Christmas spirit
out of the American hearts that beat there any
more than the tropical suns have burned it out
in the Philippines. In both lands it is the iso-
lation, the being away from the familiar family
| faces away from the busy home scenes over
which the smell of the holly, the mirth of the
mistletoe, the fragrance of the browning turkey,
| the mysterious secrecy surrounding the tying up
| of gifts, prevails that makes Christmas lone
some time in lands, period when it is hard
! to bravey fight inconsistencies unless many tok-
ems OF loving remembrance sent from friends
at home 1t is in sending gifts to these exiles
that the true spirit of Christmas is seen at it's
best and brightest. l.. .-,-
It's a pretty big jumper more correctly
| speaking long swim-from the ski to the palm
leaf fan, yet that's where our latest acquisitions
carry us. From the barren land of No Mans
| Country to the Flat lands around Manila our
Christmas wishes must travel
| While the hardships and lack of Injuries ex-
! perenced in Alaska not felt in the Philip
pines still Christmas on the Islands, where
strange customs reign and where the porker sup
plants the gobbler, makes many cast longing
/ eyes across the Pacific to the United States,
I where the sleigh bells are jngling, the snow is
falling, the Christmas candles are being lighted,
wreaths of holly hung and all made festive as
is proper at this season.
\ In the Philippines
As we snuggle down in comfort under down
quilts on Christmas Eve, tired, but happy, after
a day full of the little things that always have
to be done at the last minute on the day before
Christmas, our kith and kin in the Philippines
are restlessly brushing away fly or spider and
wishing that Christmas with its incongruous ac
compartment of warmth and bloom were over
), There is no holly, no fur-cad Santa Claus, nc
snow, not even sprig Of mistletoe on the island
to make the day homelike. Turkey can't be had
for love nor money and in this the man from
the States suffers alike in the Philippines and in
Alaska. It's dollars to doughnuts that the for
eign cook never heard of plum pudding, SO where
z does Christmas come in? just in at one place
8 in both lands, and that's at the postoffce. Or
8 Christmas the mail, if it has been delayed, is
t sorted right on board the steamer which bring.
{ it and it is distributed from there in the "coo
' of the forenoon" imagine it-cool Of the fore
: noon on Christmas Dayi
: 1t sounds strange to shout Merry Christmas
: while the sun blazes and the flowers bloom, but
down by the waters edge, with the penned greet
ings in hand just brought to the islands from thu
. United States by Uncle Sam, the Americans OF
81 this new land of ours give voice to the greet
0 ing with regular Yankee heartiness. Oh, it