Herald and news. [volume] (West Randolph, Vt.) 1878-1943, 1908-12-24
The chrIstmas shopplna.

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The day before Christmas and the
shopping is doneA-is OF necessity done
because funds are exhausted and all the
money that could he begged, borrowed or
stolen has been spent. For a week or ten
DAYS the weary shoppers have lived IN
world Of mechanical toys, dolls. sleds,
skates, Christmas cards and booklets,
burnt wood gimcracks, hand-painted
brid-a-brac like shaving paper and door
mats, and q thousand and one other per-
fectly useless trifies which only diabolical
ingenuity could invent for the affection
Of innocent people who deserve better
things.
The shopper, with nervous headache,
sits in g pile Of packages looking as
cheerful as Marius weeping over the ruins
OF Carthage. Three days ago she reached
such q state Of prostitution that she
dreamed nights Of wound-up lizards
crawling over the coverlet and q row Of
tin cats sitting on the footboard yawling
and splitting as natural as life until their
inside mechanism-re replacing the source
Of fiddle strings mercifuIly ran down.
Such visions troubling an ornament to
society, who is not even an inveterate tea
drinker, simply means indulgence to the
danger point in holiday buying.
Now she sits in the midst OF her pack
ages. tying them up with holly ribbon,
sticking on Red Cross stamps and won
dering II, after all Der trouble and worry,
there is a single thing in the collection
one Of her friends would bid on at an
auction. Similar packages have begun to
come to her. She has already received q
sweeping cap deliberately trimmed with
point lnce, bags made OF everything but
I the proper material, bran sackinR, a few
hundred cards and ten-cent booklets aud
other very desirable articles, whose only
purpose, apparently, Is to give the house.
keeper something more 10 dust.
What is to be done with all the treas
ures received and on the way turns the
simple headache into neuralgia until, in I
fash OF inspiration, comes the blessed
! thought that, after notes have been dis
patched to the respective givers, assuring
them that each gift supplies a long-fel
want, the whole caIabash can be tender
" stored in the. attic for a year. Ther
the things can be taken out, rewrappeS
and sent another Christmas to expectanN
: friends, care being exercised to avoid ths
embarrassing mistake Of sending an arti
Gle back TO its original purchaser, wh'
might recognize it after the lapse Of but
years time oince seeing II before. Il
this way labor. bother and money viii b
saved, and the capital Of friends investeI
in gifts for the shopper in 1908 can b
used by her in 1909 to avert financial ruin
and nervous breakdown. Her gratitud
viii be deep and sincere when she sees al
those lovely remembrance starting out
via the mail bag, to remember some on
else.
II is hardly likely that this scheme vii
appeal to the dry goods merchants, but q
they advertise TO be in league and part
nership with Santa Claus, an unpreiu
diced opinion could not reasonably be ex
pected from them. The plan will n
doubt strike favorably the doctor, th
butcher and grocer, whose bills we ALLOW
: to wait until after Christmas so that VI
use their money for our holiday shopping
and force loans from them with the braz
en- effrontery OF highway men.