The Waterbury Democrat., 1932-12-14
YOUR CHILDREN
g. Olhs Roboris bsrtos

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 children Enjoy Christmas Planning
 ssWhat was the most fun you ever had on ChriBtmasl" l asked Q 17-year old girl the other day.
 Quite naively she answered. "one year when mother was sick | in bed"
 "Perhaps it was the best she ever had, too," l had to say, eff she wasn't too sick to rest, and sick enough not to worry about you children"
 "She had had an operation" she replied. Tt was in Iowa where we spent a year while daddy was getting some company or other to- gether. was about eleven and | Howard nine. We didn't know many people and there we were, mother sick in bed and Christmas coming.
 "Grandma was coming out but she got sick too. We had a maid and that was all right, but daddy was hardly ever home except the week-ends. He had to be out in other towns good bit. Mother did worry because we always had a big Christmas back home and she didn't want us to be disappoint- ed."
 "Something must have turned l up to make you remember 1t this way" replied.
 Bought Own Tree "Yes it did," she continued. Daddy gave each of us ten dol- lars a couple of weeks before Christmas. And did we have the time of our lives?
 Howard and I knew there wouldn't be any Christmas unless we made it ourselves. Were we excited? We decided to surprise mother instead of her surprising us. The first thing we did was to get tree. We youngsters pick ed it out, the kind we'd always wanted with long needles. Then we proceeded to shop. We bought tree ornaments first all sorts of queer ones. Next we decided to spend some conscience money and bought a dollars worth of toys for poor children. That took two days and we would spend hours trying to decide on the color of a ball or the build of a ten-cent boat. We left the package in the open vestibule of a church and marked it For the poor We felt very useful and grown up.
 After that we went shopping in real earnest. With that twenty dol- lars we bought enough presents to fill a freight train. Some of our relations back east must have been surprised. Uncle John, remem- Der, got large red tin tray. He is @ bachelor and has beautiful apartment in New York. We re- membered his chairs were red leather. So why not a ten-cent red tray? Perhaps it never reach- ed him. We weren't much on wrap ping.
 Let Children Plan Also
 "We got mother everything from bouquet of wax morning glories to a paper parasol. How ard brought daddy two ce1luloid collars, one with red stripes. My, but he was proud of them-How- ard, I mean. I gave daddy a two- quart cup with dog on the side. But altogether think we bought them about thirty presents and we didn't forget Lena, either.
 We put the tree up in mothers room and trimmed 1t ourselves. Dad said we could. We were so excited we never once thought about ourselves We were sur- prised when Christmas packages began to arrive for those two poor lonely children out there.' We, wasted. the money" she added, "but after all, what was the difference? It was the realest Christmas we ever had. We did just as we sweetly pleased"
 I'm going to write too,'' I said, Tt just proves that too many of usrobch
 many of us rob children of the real pleasure of Christmas. The great cry is give them something to do and then when December comes along we forget 1t and steal all the, excitement of planning and shop ping for ourselves"