page 47

Eats for All and All for Eats.

At Christmas the mind and the stomach form a co-elation. For it is impossible to maintain a full mind on an empty stomach. There ensues a meeting of eats and wits and a league of notions led by Santa Claus, Good King Wenceslas, Old King Cole, the two merry pitter-pats Hil Larity and Jovey Ality, and Holly Day—the girl who takes the right turning. They proceed to take the “sigh” out of psychology and the “lie” out of Life. The question “to spree or not to spree” is decided in the afflingative. Christmas takes the chair, and the Ideal State comes into being; a state in which the watchwords are “eats for all and all for eats” and “servings before self.” Voices are lifted and faces are lifted and song echoes among the architectural jiblets of the banquet hall.

Come sound the note of Christmas-tide,
And let it echo far and wide;
The soul is dead that cannot hit
The high spots, when the time is fit.
The goose is fat, as fat as butter,
It never made a better flutter.
“The time has come,” the walrus said,
“When mind and matter truly wed,”
For mental joy is better when
Uplifted by the abdomen,
And conquering the feints of Fate
Is lightened by the “middle-weight:”
Oh glad the heart which sings of Spring,
Of Summer and the sand-fly's sting;
But gladder still the soul that recks
That most important spot marked X,
Reposing fairly in the seat
Of joy, where soul and body meet.
So, if you'd favour perfect sport
At Christmas, mingle food with thought!

Christmas is all one to one-and-all. It is the everlasting All-addin whose lamp brings forth the “spin you love to clutch.” Christmas gives you a rare spin and a fair spin. One rub and up spring the genii of the Great Out of Doors, Sport and Leisure, Sun and Sea, Life, Love and Laughter, Road and Rail, and anything else you will.

When you rub for the Rail you win the rubber. For the railway is the real way for a roll away on a holiday. It takes you up, but it never “lets you down.” It trips continually but never “falls down on the job.” It romps home with a hoot and a toot, an easy winner in the Holiday Handicap.

It is as much a part of the festival as Desmond D. Duff, Gertrude G. Goose, Bernard B. Bottle, the brothers Lamb and Mint, and all the other merry members of the cast of that great holiday hit, “Oh, You Christmas!”