Milford chronicle. [volume] (Milford, Del.) 1878-1974, 1927-12-09

The cheeriest visitor of all the
year will soon be making his annual
round of millions of homes all the
way from Bagdad to Peru. How he
manages to accomplish so much in
a single night, no one ever knows
but legend says he never drives past
a roof where happy boys and girls
in America live without dropping
swiftly down the chimney to fill the
expectant stockings with all sorts
of mysterious, bulgy bumps and to
leave a whole bag full of joy be-
meath a glittering Christmas tree.
The wonderful thing about this jol-
liese of all saints is that every year
he seems to know better what chill
dren will like them to have in the
way of toys.
This year he is setting out from
his snow-covered workshop, on top
of the world, with his sleigh piled
high with sacks full of shiny, bright
playthings that are dirt-resisting
and washable and that won't cause
the breaking of young hearts by dis
migrating before Santa can get
around again to replace them. For
the last few years, he has been ex-
perimenting with toys of pyralin.
Indestructible dolls and rattles and
tops and a thousand beloved joy
makers are the result of his work
and good old Saint Nick has so
much fun making them. OF all
things to make such hard shiny
things from, he starts out with a
basket of cotton-fuffy, white cot
ton-just as it comes from the cot
ton gins.
First, he shreds it and dissolves
it in certain magic potions, COM
bines it with alcohol plus some
fairy powders to make a sticky
mass, which he kneads and kneads
and kneads, just as mother kneads
the dough for pies. Then, he adds
bright colors to make it pink, ivory,
amber or any celor he wants, after
which he puts it into machines that
press it into huge blocks that weigh
about $50 pounds apiece. When this
is done, he brandishes a huge cary
ing knife with which he carves the
blocks into sheets of varying thick
nesses, about fifty inches long and
twenty inches wide. These sheets,
after they have been thoroughly
dried and have been given plenty of
time to season, are the material of
which Santa makes the most anus
ing toys that any child could posi-
bly, desire.
One of the cutest of this years
playthings is a transparent ball,
half filled with water, with either a
swan or fish floating around in
side. When Santa first rolled that
ball across his workshop floor, he
laughed till he fell down and rolled
around the floor, too, at the funny
way that the swan swan and bob
bed and danced. So pleased was he
with this creation that he made an
other ball that amused him just as
much as the first. Half of it's sphere
is pink and the other half is white
with a puppy dog painted on it.
When the toy is rolled or thrown,
the puppy goes "yip, zip, yip," in a
most realistic falsetto squeak.
It would take all tonight and all
tomorrow and most of tomorrow
night to tell of all the different
kinds of toys, produced chemically
from cotton, that Santa has stored
up, somewhere way North of Alaska,
but just as sure as sure can be-,
when Dasher and Dancer and Dom
ner and Bitten start galloping
south this year they'll be bringing
a sleigh laden with such fascinating
and durable toys as were never seen
before.