142 MORE POT-POURRI 



money wasted in poor, useless stuff if they brought it 

 home. I dare say I am prejudiced in these matters, 

 having always had a very great dislike to wholesale 

 present -giving at fixed anniversaries, whether birthdays, 

 Christmas, or New Year. 



I think that while children are quite small — say, up 

 to the age of ten or twelve — we might leave the matter 

 as it stands at present, as the said redundant heap on 

 the nursery floor may give a peculiar pleasure of its 

 own. But this is quite different from an obligatory 

 present -giving to all sorts of people — servants and 

 dependents, grown-up children, fathers, mothers, and 

 old grannies. We all know houses where this kind of 

 thing is much practised, and where, year after year, it 

 is an immense toil to the givers, and but very little 

 appreciated by the receivers. It is almost laughable, 

 the way that people who are apparently the greatest 

 supporters of this custom of present -giving at stated 

 times groan over the trouble and expense it entails, and 

 congratulate themselves and each other when the ter- 

 rible Christmas fortnight is at an end. 



This fashion of giving presents to all sorts of 

 promiscuous people at special times has immensely 

 increased since my childhood, when it was only 

 beginning — imported no doubt, as far as Christmas is 

 concerned, from Germany. The French, who keep their 

 rubbish -giving for the New Year, confine themselves 

 almost entirely to flowers and bonbons, which, if 

 equally useless, have at least the merit of passing away 

 and of not crowding up our chimneypieces and writing- 

 tables. The turning of every shop into a bazaar ; the 

 display of meat, game, and turkeys on the outside of 

 shops ; the spending of a disproportionate amount of 

 money on feasting — all this is comparatively recent. I 

 can quite well remember, as a girl, the excitement of 



