Plentywood herald. [volume] (Plentywood, Mont.) 1908-current, 1928-12-20
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Utristmas
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TOO OFTEN CHRISTMAS is a burden and an ordeal.
We let it become the season when we eat more than we
4 want and drink more than we need. AS frequently as
not we spend more than we can afford and we receive more
than we can use. When the day is done we offer thanks
that another twelve months must intervene before we under
go another such experience.
What folly! Christmas is the finest of all holidays if
we treat it right.
Really there is no day quite like it in all the calendar.
The other religious festivals are seasons of sacrifice and of
solemnity. The other national holidays are times of martial
celebration or of the making of good resolutions.
Christmas is unique among the idle days. We celebrate
not our achievements nor the glories of our forebears, but
something different and finer than anything we expect to be.
At no other time is generosity so much IN evidence.
We indulge ourselves and are liberal with our friends, rela-
lives and dependents according to our habits.
So generous are we that the Christmas spirit is one of
the important factors in business. This year the banks dis
bursed more than a haltbilion dollars to those thrifty ones
who joined Christmas savings clubs.
A vast sum of money, its expenditure has already done
much to stimulate trade. Nobody need quarrel with that. If
he Eskimos live by doing one anothers laundry we may
prosper by exchanging Christmas presents.
But the cowboy who ordered a hundred dollars worth
of ham and eggs didn have much of a meal. No more does
the mere expenditure of money make a Merry Christmas.
We have to give something which bears no price tick
ct. if we want either to be happy or to make others happy.
That something is the precious quality in the life of the
Child whose birth we celebrate.
If Christianity has meant one thing throughout the
ages it is human brotherhood. Long before Bethlehem was
famous in history, members of a single family were tied to-
yether by bonds of affection and parents were able to see
good even in their erring children.
With Christianity the family widened and we were
aught that it is good to extend that same understanding and
good will to men of all races and faiths.
We call ours a Christian country but most of us fall
far short of living in accordance with this great principle.
Christmas invites us to look out and beyond our mar
row circles and to attempt to see the essential humanity of
people quite different from us.
AS we are able to do this we are refreshed and not
wearied by the season.
IF you want to get the most out of this Christmas, put
the best of yourself into it. Give what you can in money
and things to those to whom such gifts will bring pleasure
or comfort, but don't stop there.
Try to extend the Christmas spirit to people you don't
ordinarily like. See if in the light of Christmas morning you
can get a farer comprehension of the thoughts of those with
whose opinions and customs you disagree. You don't have
to change your own views or habits-just get a clear picture
of the other fellow.
If you are well supplied with the good things of life, do
something for others not so fortunate and don't let your right
hand know of the good deeds you are able to accomplish
with your left. Try a little of that fundamental Christian
spirit and you will be neither bored nor impoverished by an
other Christmas.