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CHRISTMAS TREES
CHINA MAIL CHRISTMAS SUPPLEMENT,
Picturesque Interiors of Houses
Quite nine-tenths of the thousands of Christmas trees come across the North Sea, particularly from Holland, where their cul- tivation is a side line with the farmers and market gardeners who flourish in South Guelderland and the provinces of Utrecht and Limburg.
Upon this side-line the Dutch vrouw smiles approvingly. For a plantation of firs, pines, or Norway spruce-all "Christmas trees" in the trade if not all of the same commercial value-may determine the num- ber of gold "cap" ornaments in her treasure chest, and whether her husband's velveteen coat is studded with gold or silver buttons.
Christmas trees in Holland are generally grown on boggy land useless for anything else; and the custom has arisen among pros- perous country folk of setting aside the cash returns of that particular bit of land for the purchase of some purely personal ornament.
It matters not that perhaps ten years may lapse between the sowing of the first tiny seedlings and the long-looked-for November when, after three transplantings, the trees are ready for their final unrooting -the time of waiting rather enhances the value of the coveted possession when it does arrive.
Glittering Headdresses
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GOING RIGHT UP
In that way many a Guelderland family has acquired the glittering headdresses it is fortunate individual is doing on the snow clad hills? How would you like to soar up on skis as this customary to give the girls of that pro- vince at their confirmation. And a costly enough cap it is, being of gold metal beaten to fit the individual head, and having a hole at the top for ventilation.
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1929.
EXIT "XMAS”?
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From America there is news of a grand attack on “Xmas”—not on the thing itself, fortunately, but on the abbreviation. Leaders of the churches in New York com. plain that it is 'lacking in rever- ence,' and, according to the Daily News," sermons are to be preached and wireless address delivered against usage. It is one that can at least claim a considerable antiquity, for the "x" here is uo unknown quantity, but really stands for the Greek "chi" as the first letter in the Greek spelling of "Christ.” A capital "X" was used as an abbreviation in such words as "christen" and "christened" almost as soon as there was any call to write those words at all in the country.
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Coleridge Quoted
On the same principle "Xmas" was later established and has been in use for many
rebuke. generations without
Coleridge used the contraction with some freedom in his familiar letters, and though Coleridge had many failings, neither a lack of rever- ence nor a disrespect for the English lan- guage is usually reckoned among his short- comings. But in America "Xmas" has managed to offend the sensitive eye, and it is proposed that even advertisers shall not be allowed to use it. It is idle, one supposes, to point out nowadays that it was in origin something of a scholar's contraction in popular usage the Greek significance of the "X". has been forgotten and "Xmas" tends to be pronounced exactly as it has written for short.
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been
a kind of wooden box with a perforated lid. These little stools are very comforting, and are to be found all over Holland. Most Dutch Dutch farmhouse interiors, picturesque women in the country districts even carry Still, it is rather curious that an age indeed when summer suns are glowing, are easily hire them from the sacristan. Baby's which, more than any of its forerunners, in- draughty places at this time of year. But them to church, and those who don't can clines to specialise in abbreviations and a farmer's wife circumvents the winter feet are also kept warm, in pretty much the strings of initials should be found object- blasts and the chilliness of her stone floors same way, for his high-backed wooden seating to a form which represents, in essence, by the test, a little metal stand full of burn-en wheels has an opening underneath for a one of the very earliest contractions of the ing peat, which she pops into her footstool, little pot of burning peat!
Christian era.
A THRILLING MOMENT-WHEN A BOB SLEIGH CURVES
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One of the most enjoyable forms of Christmas sports is bob sleighing. Note how the "crew" lean over, in making a turn, as they do in
motor-cycle-combination races.
Printed and published for the Proprietors, The Newspaper Enterprise Limited, by DAVID CHRISTIAN WILSON, business manager, at
3a. Wyndham Street. Hong Kong.
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