The Mellette County pioneer. [volume] (Wood, Mellette County, S.D.) 19??-1971, 1922-12-15

Some Of the biggest and oldest OF them are 30 fee'
in diameter and at least 5000 years old. SO you
see many of these Big Trees in Sequoia and losem'
ite national parks were not even middle-aged when
Christ was born in Bethlehem.
This particular Sequoia Christmas tree was
planted in 1890. From n Seeding 1t has grown
TO a height of more than GO feet. A thousand
years from now 1t will probably be nearly 300 feet
tall and have Il diameter Of Is Or 20 feet.
One wonders if there will be a similar Christmas
celebration in Yosemite valley then-a thousand
years from now. Why not? Christmas viii still
be celebrated then-if the world endures. And
our nineteen national parks have been set apart
by congress as public Fairgrounds for the people
forever. SO. if the United States of America en-
dures, why not Il Christmas celebration in Yosem-
ite A.. ID. 2922? All that seems to be necessary
IS the planting of II Sequoia Seeding every thirty
years or so.
Christmas and miIce pie! Nobody ought to
have TO tell anybody that Christmas is the time for
mince pie. Why, the two 60 together-just like
Thanksgiving and pumpkin pie and the Fourth OF
July and spring lamb and green peas. The first
m,nce pe of the winter should grace the Christmas
board: any housewife who gives her family even
q taste of one before Christmas day should 20 With.
out q new Easter hat-that's the punishment to
fit the crime. And any man who eats mlhce pie
at a restaurant or Mt his club before Christmas day
should go without mince pie all winter.
However, If he should, his punishment would
likely fit the crime. For nowadays the making Of
mince pies is largely a lost art. The ordinary
restaurant mince pie is nothing but minced fruit.
There is n saying that every really good woman
cook must have a temper. Maybe. Certainly she
should be nice and plump-as IL she ate her own
mince pies and thrived on them. And it's easy
TO tell by watching n woman make mince pies
whether or not they're going to be Il success. If
she goes nj 1t, you know, as Ii 1t were sort Of a
religious rite-as If the fate of the nation hung
on her work-why, all is well.
"Pies like mother used to make !" TenderlOin OF
beef and Northern Spy apples and real cider and
everything else to correspond! Maybe mother used
70 bake her pies a dozen at IL time and set them
away in q cold store room to freeze. Maybe
mother got her mince meat ready ana set il aside
in n biz stone jar to ripen. 1t doesn't make any
difference. They were real mince pies when they
got 10 the Christmas dinner. The looks Of them
The smell of them! The taste Of them! Yum,
yum There's a memory Il fellow can carry With
him TO his grave.
Do YOU remember Izaak Walton's friend DR.. Bot.
teller and his famous appreciation Of the strawber-
ry? Wei, It's quite evident the good doctor never
sat down to just the right kind of IL Christmas
dinner or he would have ignored the strawberry ms
unworthy az his cleverness and would have said in
stead that doubtless God could have inspired some
heaven-bOrn cook to make a more appropriate des-
sert for December % than mince pie but that doubt
less God never did.