The X's in Xmas.

It takes many Christmases to make a Christmas. One man's, or woman's, or child's Christmas is stranger to another man's, woman's or child's Christmas. Some like to spend the happy days in mastication and meditation. Some hie them hotfoot hither and thither, tasting their freedom on the hoof. Some find solace in somnolence. Some seek fresh spots; others like flesh pots. But all resemble each, in that they taste for a fleeting merry moment the joys of freedom.

Again, the Christmas of youth is not the Christmas of age. Both can claim an equal meed of merriment; but (Continued on page 72).

“Only a ‘one-podding man'.”

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Christmas Rings (Cont. from p. 69 ). youth gets the spirit of the season in double doses; it laps up impressions and sensations more greedily. ‘Tis a pity that the edge of imagination is dulled, as the years accumulate, by constant impact with the tough timber of maturity. But lucky is he who can recapture some of those sensations which caused his heart to leap and loop the loop in the Christmases of his youth; no adult gift from the gods ever equalled in excellence the gaudy tin toys redolent with that delicious scent of fresh paint. It is doubtful if the first prize in an art union could generate the glorious glee engendered by the first dive into the stocking at dawn on Christmas morn; and it's a pity that ageing digestion has detracted so piteously from the joys of the Christmas table. True, we manage to recapture in some measure the enthusiasm of our youth for the exotic emanations from the kitchen. But, alas! The heart is good, but the capacity is sadly impaired. Looking backwards we remember how we watched our father nonchalantly order a second helping of the rich pudding and we recollect how we registered a solemn vow that when we grew up one of our first gestures to the attainment of adulthood would be helping after helping of pudding. But what has happened? We have learnt that, after waiting all these years, we are only one-pudding men; evidently our fathers were better men than we. Such is the irony of ambition.