THE CHRISTMAS WOODS 



evening, taking on daffodil hues at noon, 

 snow is harder to paint. Fretted with 

 windy tracery and drawn out into stream- 

 ing lines where the gale races along by a 

 fence, snow is not, on Christmas greetings, 

 permitted to be seen. 



The first snowstorm of the year should 

 be sent from Labrador on Christmas Eve 

 and sprinkled impartially and ornament- 

 ally over all the land. Then, the Yule 

 atmosphere once provided, the distribution 

 should be confined to the rural clientele 

 until the next December, for on streets 

 the hoar frost is indeed like ashes. But 

 why, in somber justice, should the far 

 South pretend to holiday snow at all? 

 Why not Christmas cards pranked with 

 live oaks, alligators, lagoons, and other 

 beauties of an Everglade scene an in- 

 spiring escape from tradition and senti- 

 ment? For the antlered steeds must 

 prance above hibiscus flowers as well as 

 round the Pole. Yet it must seem dull to 

 hang stockings by a fireplace that needs 

 fire merely as a decoration and never to 

 have loved a sleigh ! 



Abandoned, but still no downcast com- 

 pany, slanting corn shocks not honored 



