The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1910-01-10
EVENING CHAT
BY RUTH CAMERON

Iwant to lift up my voice tonight
against = good custom that seems to be
fast becoming an evil one-ln other
words, against the frenzy of formal
gifts into which the present day seems
to have plunged.
Every possible occasion nowadays Is
made a gift.sivirg time.
Our fatners-or at least our grand
fatf1ers-can remember the days when
even at Christmas-the greatest of all
gift-giving\ days--there were but three
or four or half dozen gifts in the
family and most of these for the chill
dren.
Today for month beforehand it
seems as If the whole world were work
ling itself up for December rs. People
who give and receive twenty or thirty
gifts are legion and know not a few
whose gift-giving and receiving mounts
up into the forties and 1fties.
Almost everyone spends more money,
time and ergy than he should upon
his gift giving.
Christmas eve finds many of us with
wern-out bodies and frazzled tempers
instead of in the peace or earth. good
ought to prevail on that beautiful
birthday.
: In a report of a committee that in
vestigated those abominable salary
loan associations which lend at ex-
orbitant interest on the security of sal
IessIy into debt, I found it stated that
the need of money for Christmas gifts
was one of the things that most often
got young men into the clutches of the
loan sharks.
Birthday giving is growing more
elaborate each year.
Charles Lamb spoke of the children of
his day as thinking of their birthdays
as occasions to be made noteworthy by
"cake and orange" Imagine the child
l.
anything less than cake and ice cream
and half dozen gifts on his birthday.
New Years giving is running a close
second to Christmas in some commune
ties. Easter is rapidly becoming a gift
giving day st. Valentines day is the
occasion of more or less gift. exchang-
ing, and last Thanksgiving a florist told
me that he sent out quite few flowers
as Thanksgiving gifts.
And in addition to these gift giving
days, we are constantly finding new
gift-giving occasions. To the old-time
wedding gift has been added the en-
gagement and the shower gift. If any
, one of our friends goes on a journey
there must nowadays be a going away
gift for him. Once upon time when a
girl graduated from high school or col
! 1ege her father and mother gave her
some little thing. Nowadays all her
relatives and intimate friends also con-
| tribute
| All this isn't normal. 1t isn't healthy
| 1t isn't sane.
| If all these gifts were the spontane-
Gus expression of the love of the giver
| this abundance of gift-giving would be
the sign of rapidly approaching mil
| lennium.
I But you know they aren't.
Some are simply slavish obedience tc
society's formalities Some are simply
foolish and even wicked ostentations.
If you are the most generous being
| living am willing to wager that there
have been occasions in the past year
when you have said. ''Oh. dear. I've got
to give So-and-so something
| Haven't there? And is a gift given ir
such a spirit true gift?
| What are we going to do about it.
| Nothing. probably.
But I'll tell you what wish we could
/ do.
I wish We could all make a resolution
to make it our ideal to be worked to.
| wards, to give generously when we fee
| a real desire to give. no matter whether
| there is any especial occasion or not
and to refrain from giving when we dc
not genuinely desire to give, no matter
] what the demands of the occasion ma,
4 he