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Acknowledgments - In collecting material used in this anthology, every effort has been made to locate the copyright owners. If anyone has been overlooked, please notify the editor and proper acknowledgment will be made.

The help of Dennison is appreciated, especially with the section on gift wrappings. This material is copyright © by Dennison.

01. About Christmas - There is no festival on earth like Christmas, none so vital or universal, none celebrated by so many people for so many centuries in so many lands. Around the season, exulting in its meaning and demonstrating its joyfulness, great numbers of rituals and legends and customs have developed, both religious and secular. Some are as old as the pagan rituals which celebrated the sun's closer approach to the earth after the shortest and coldest days of the year. Some are as new as the singing of "White Christmas," as the lighting of a giant Christmas tree in the middle of town.

02. Gifts - Give yourself at Christmas; there really is no more wonderful gift, Out of the pretty box you give can fly all sorts of rare intangibles, once the ribbon is off and the lid is lifted. Affection, nostalgia, laughter, shared memories all these can crackle in the tissue paper along with grace and generosity. I was watching, a gift can say: last summer I could see you needed a better tennis racket. I was listening, a gift can tell: I heard you say you liked old cars ... or Beethoven ... or adventure stories.

03. Christmas Packages - It isn't magic! Wrapping a gift so that it is handsome, tasteful, and secure really isn't a trick at all, though it takes a little practice at the beginning. The basic procedures which follow are simple and foolproof.

One helpful tip is to keep all your wrapping materials together, throughout the year. Have a drawer or shelf or box that's handy, and stow them away. Get together a supply of paper, ribbons, tape, tissue, and gift cards (plus a pair of scissors that's attached to a long string, perhaps, so that it stays put and doesn't wander off on a dozen other errands).

04. Christmas Cards - If there's anything that brings out the creative urge in us, it's Christmas. Even if we don't bake, or sing, or sew, or paint much during the year, we find ourselves cheerily making cookies, singing carols, running up little gifts on the machine and making Christmas decorations. And as for Christmas cards, well, everyone at some time or another is tempted. Without question, the cards we look at longest, and remember most, and can't bear to throw away, are the cards we receive that friends have made themselves.

05. Christmas House - Let your home, your door, your windows, call out the Christmas message. For family, for friends, for strangers passing by, you can set the joyous mood of the season days before the Day itself. It's always such a pleasant moment when we see the first lighted wreath, the first evergreen sparkling at night on a lawn. Christmas can begin at that hour for us, and extend all through the holidays.

06. Christmas Cooking - Turkeys come in almost any size now, so that the bird can really be tailored to the size of the crowd you'll be having for Christmas. From as little as four pounds to as much as twenty-four, the turkey roasted the traditional way is tender and juicy, a mouthwatering brown.Roast Turkey

Stuff turkey just before roasting. Allow ¾ to 1 cup stuffing per pound ready-to-cook weight. Stuff wishbone cavity and skewer neck skin to back. Tuck wing tips behind shoulder joints. Rub large cavity with salt. Spoon in stuffing. Shake bird to settle stuffing; do not pack.

07. Others Christmas - If you have ever been alone, or confined, at Christmas time, you know how empty the season can be, and how grateful and happy you would have been if cheer and loving-kindness had been brought to you. Every Christmas, in every community, there are those who need such attention and would welcome and appreciate it deeply. Either as individuals or through organizations we all have almost unlimited opportunity to serve the needs of others, at this time of year. City and country alike, in any area, have some or all of the following places, where need is apparent:

08. Children's Christmas - Convert this most favorite of all children's party games to the Christmas season; substitute a reindeer for a donkey. It takes a bit of handiwork and can be a decorative motif for the party as well as a game, Cut out a large reindeer, from white paper, and paste on a bright blue background. Spark the reindeer with glitter, and paste silver snowflakes all around in the sky. Make enough little tails, prepared with a pin, and proceed as always with this beloved game.

09. Festivals + Customs - The gifts given by the Wise Men to the Infant Jesus are, of course, very probably the source of our present-day custom. We give, thus, to those we cherish, and this derivation is so direct that in many countries even today gifts are given on January 6 rather than December 25. January 6, the Twelfth Night, is believed to be the date on which the Wise Men appeared to the Holy Family, and is so observed in Poland, Italy, Russia, Spain and the Spanish-American countries.

10. Christmas Records - (Compiled by Philip L. Miller, The New York Public Library; revised by Stephen Holden)

{Note: Most of the records listed are in print. Those that are not may be borrowed from record libraries. The vagaries of the recording industry are such that those not listed in the latest record catalogs may be reissued subsequently on other labels.

11. Christmas In USA - Christmas in Chicago, fifty years ago, was a happy, home festival in a city not yet too rich, too pretentious, to be neighborly. There was usually snow at Christmas; it lay in large heaps in the gutters and was packed solid on the streets. When snow fell it was heavy with moisture; it blocked trains and held up streetcars. The average citizen shoveled his own sidewalks clean and looked after his own fires.

12. Christmas Stories - The town of Cardenas, a hundred miles to the east of Havana on the north coast of Cuba, is an old dog a small, taffy-colored dog that is learning new tricks. Three times a week, nowadays, a ferry from Key West brings Cardenas a boatload of American tourists, and these Americans, all of whom have such white faces that they appear to have been sick, seem strange and wondrous to the people of the town. Small boys follow them on the sidewalks and, when they speak, race around in front in order to watch their lips form the mysterious, incomprehensible foreign words.

13. Future. Christmas - There is every reason to believe that the old haphazard and unscientific methods of celebrating Christmas are slowly dying out and that the Christmas of the future will be observed with a maximum of efficiency and a minimum loss of energy.

In the past, Christmas as a holiday has often been fraught with danger to life and limb, but science is making rapid strides in the direction of making the Yuletide safe for democracy.

14. Christmas Verse - God bless all little boys who stand outside Gay Yuletide windows, with a stubborn pride Calculating how far present cash May go; then suddenly resolved and rash, Darting within to watch with restless eyes The wrapping of the Annual Surprise.

God bless all little boys who toss and turn The few nights left to Christmas, and who burn With agonizing doubt. . . Would that be better Chains them to alternation like a fetter.

THE END

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