1946-12-14 — Page 4

Christmas

GIFT

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THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1946.

SUGGESTIONS

Silverware

Department

For Gifts of Lasting Value

Pay a Visit to the Jewellery and Silverware Section

Solection of Beautiful

South African Diamonds:

Loather Goods:

Handbags: Etc.

Jurnishing

Department

Lamp Shades in Artistic Designs Standard Lamps & Ash Tray Sets Jute Rugs: Bed Covers

Cushion Cases: Tea Cloths

For the Ladies

A Delightful Range of

Perfumes: Rouge

Lipsticks: Powder

Cream

Gold and Silver Jewellery: Large Assortment of Costume Jewellery & Tollot Requisites for Ladies and Gentlemen.

Mens Wear

Department

Imt. Hogskin Gloves Silk Dressing Gowns Silk Ties: Wool Rugs

Wool Half Hose: Leather Wallets Wool Dressing Gowns

Perfumery

Section

Elizabeth Ardens Beauty Preparations

Beautiful Combination Make Up Sets

For the Gentlemen Shaving Cream Shaving Lotion Hair Pomade Brilliantine

Grocery & Provision: Wine & Spirits Dept.

CONFECTIONERY

Neilson's Chocolates

Assorted Confectionery

Biscuits

GROCERY

Hampers of

Assorted Groceries,

Xmas Puddings,

Fruits, Tongue

Cheese, Jellies. Etc..

PROVISIONS Selected Tinned Ham, Bacon,

Cheese

BUTCHERY Australian Meat Poultry, Sausages Etc.

Wine, Spirits & Tobacco

HAMPERS

CONTAINING CHAMPAGNE, WHISKY, GIN, BRANDY, PORT, ETC. CIGAR & CIGARETTES

LANE CRAWFORD,

EXCHANGE BUILDING

LTD.

TEL. 28151 (ALL LINES).

ELECTRICAL

ENGINEERING

EQUIPMENT OF EVERY KIND

CROMPTON GENERATORS, MOTORS, CABLES, SWITCHGEAR, INSTRUMENTS, METERS, LAMPS, BATTERIES, TRUCKS, TRACTION EQUIPMENT, B.E.T. TRANSFORMERS

CROMPTON, PARKINSON LTD. LONDON

BIRMINGHAM, CHELMSFORD, DERBY, GUISELEY, HAYES, LEICESTER

REISS BRADLEY & CO.,

CO., LTD.

SOLE AGENTS

NATIONAL CITY BANK OF NEW YORK BUILDING (TOP FLOOR)

EST.

6.00

1834

GEORGE COHEN SONS & CO., LTD.

AND ASSOCIATED COMPANIES

BROWETT, LINDLEY, LAN

E. H. HEWITT LTD., METAL MERCHANTS ¿THE HYGIENIC CHEMICAL CO., LTD.

T. C. JONES & CO., LTD.

K. & L. STEELFOUNDERS & ENGINEERS LTD,

METALCLAD LTD.

PESTICIDE (DDT) LTD.

THE SELSON MACHINE TOOL CO., LTD.

The Origins Of

THE YULE LOG: MISTLETOE: TURKEYS: CHRISTMAS TREES: SANTA CLAUS

PHE frst thing you must agree

TH

to do if you want a really old- fashioned Christmas ly not 10 keep it on December 25 at all, but cleven days later.

Unti 1763, when, the English calendar was brought into line with the Continental by cutting out all dates from October 5 to 15. Christ- mas was kept on what is now January 5.

Decorations

*

were being put up about the time we now lake them down, on Twelfth Night.

THE

@

C

THE oldest Christmas riten

hanging holly and mistletoe and burning the Yule log. December 25 was a holly night in pre-Roman Brilala. They called it the Mothers' Night, and was part of their ceremonies of lol, or Yule, meaning |a wheel, whilch suggests the revolu-

tion of the seasons.

They hung their dwellings with evergreens, to encourage the coming of spring, and were given by the Druids a plece of the sacred mistletoe, which had been cut with a golden knife.

If the mistletoe is cut in any other way, or touches the ground, it loses Įts magic.

You may have os many kisses under the mistletoe as there are berries on the bunch. After each kiss, a berry must be plucked.

•

AMONG

traditional amusements are the waits, dancing, dicing, and "keeping Christmas." The walts wero companies of musical watchmen-the early police---who were ready to play and sing at all feasts.

Dicing was Queen Elizabeth's way of amusing herself at Christmas time. She enjoyed it, as she always won, since stie had the good sense to play with a loaded dice that always turn- ed up the highest numbers.

Card playing Christmas became fashionable after Queen Anne's death because it was favoured at Court. George It was particularly fond of cards. "His attachment to cards," his biographer says, "was transferred to his attachment to the ladles, and it is said that what he goined by the one he lost by the

other."

Pantomimes were invented by Mr. John Rich, of Lincoln's Inn Theatre, who produced the first on Boxing Day, 1717. What he did was to space out, between the acts of a serious play, the story--of Columbine and Harlequin.

From the first he gave theatregoers surprising transformation scenes, and Harlequin, with a wave of his wand, would turn palaces and temples into huts and, cottages, men into wheel- barrows, trees into houses, and work- shops into animals,

Between 1717 and his death in 1761, Rich brought out à pantomime every year, and each ran between forly and tifly nights.

HRISTMAS trees are German,

and the Hanoverians failed to make them popular in England. Even as late as 1789, when Mr Papendlelt proposed to entertain his children, with an illuminated tree, mamma shook her head.

น objected," she confided to her diary. "Our eldest girl, Charlotte, being only six, I thought our children too young to be amused at so much trouble and expense."

Princess Lieven had Christmas

tree at Penshanger in 1820, but it was not unill Prince Albert introduced one to Windsor Castle in 1841 that they became essential to an English Christmas.

Any girl who is not kissed under the mistletoe at Christmas will not be married during the next twelve

months.

Married people must be just as careful about choosing holly as the unmarried must be about mistletoe. For if the house is decorated with prickly holly then, said the Druids, the husband will rule throughout the year, but if it is smooth, the wife will "wear the trousers."

A YULE log has to be brought home by the menfolk on Christ- men Eve and kindled by the women with the remains of last year's, kept specially for the purpose. The iris must first wash their hands before setting the log ablaze.

The devil is powerless to do mis chief to households where the Yule log has been properly burned.

In Scolland the Yule log must be of Birch, stripped of its burk and dried beforehand, while in the north of England a large lump of coal will serve. What will do in Hongkong, custom has not decided, although Christmas has been celebrated here for over a hundred years.

ANNIVERSARIES OF

NOTE IN DECEMBER

Three members of the British Royal Family .celebrate their birth- day in December, though in the case of King George VI, whose anniversary, falls on December 14, official celebrations take place during the summer. This year the King will be 51.

The Duchess of Gloucester. (born Christmas Day, 1901) and the are the other two Duchess of Kent (born December 13, 1908) December birthdays.

•

December, in fact is à nolable month for anniversaries in the British Commonwealth. On December 2, 1097, St. Paul's Cathedral rose sqala from the ashes of the Great Fire. Thomas Carlyle, essayist and historian was born on the 4th (1795) and Warren Hastings, -first Governor-General of India, was born on the 6th (1782). The 7th is the anniversary of the opening of the first Covent Garden Theatre in London in 1732.

Milion was born on December 9, 1808, and on the 11th there is an anniversary of much more recent memory, King George VI's accession to the Throne in 1036, W. AL. Thackeray died on Decem- ber 24, 1863.

And also in December. two old political enemies have anniver- 13rica. Benjamin Disraeli made his first speech in the House of Commons on the 7th in 1837, at which time the redoubtable Mr. W. E. Gladstone was shortly to celebrate his 28th birthday on

December 28,

When You Think Of Christmas, Remember-

Ladies' Gift Stockings There are no more Nylon Stockings, but we take pride in offering you instead Superb

Chiffonettes

packed in beautiful Gift Boxes.

Ready-Made Suits

New shipment of English tailored two-piece

Gents' Suits

Bigger selection, ¦ All sizes.

ONLY $125

1

STOCKING hanging is one of the

practices that come to us from Santa Claus, the original Fother Christmas,

Santa Claus Isn't a Laplander at all, and never saw a reindeer in his life. Actually he was a Greek bishop, Nicolas of Myra, who lived in the fourth century. He was both generous and shy, and hated to be thanked for the presents he was continually making to those in need.

Once he climbed to a reef top and dropped a purse of gold down the. chimney so that, he would not be seen. The money, instead of falling In the dre, lodged in a child's stocking that had been hung up to dry on the mantelpiece.

That is the origin of stocking hang- ing. Whenever unexpected gifts came from unknown sources, they were attributed to St. Nicholas,

His vogue was spread in America by German and Scandinavian cattlers, and introduced from there to England at the end of the eighteenth century, His name, SL Nicholas, became corrupted to Santa Cinus. Ils gown of scarlet, trimmed with white, is a Swiss iden.

IF you want a really old-fashioned

Christmas dinner you must put nside all thought of turkey and plum pudding.

Turkeys, of course, arc anodier American innovation, and

have nothing to do with the English tradition.

Plum puddings were unknown until about 1730.

Real Christmas fare would include plum porrlage. This was a strong broth of shin beef, spleed, with raisins, currants and prunes, doubly refined sugar and strengthened" with two quarts of old hock and. sherry. It was thickened with brend- crumbs and served in a tureen

Barring turkeys, almost everything should be caten at Christmas, but

can particularly, if you

get them, peacocks and swans the bird Dis- racli 30 enjoyed easing. in the Mtudle Ages, the Chris.nas feast began about three o'clock in the aernoon and lasted unul midnight.

Swan was the standard qish. In 1612 the Earl of Northumberland had five swans for Christmas, turce for New Year's Day and four on Twelfth Night.

Peacocks

skinned were

before roasung and then recioined in their feathers. The most beautiful woman in the company always, had, the honour of bringing in the peacock. but it was dry eating. Three fat sheep, it was said, were aceded to make gravy for one peacock.

WOMEN to-day don't bake for

Christmas as they did in the

past.

But one thing you must not fall to cat is minco ple, which Pepps, good Englishman that he was, well know. On Christmas Day, 1082, he tells us: "I dined by my wile's bedside with great content, having a mess of brave plum porridge and a roasted pullet for dinner, and I sent for a mince pia abroad, my wife not being well to make any herzçlt.

You"

Mince pics should really be made of minced beef or muiton mixed with plums or sugar, but imperceptibly, over many centuries, the mest has grown less and less.

There is no luck in store for the man or woman who does not eat a minice ple at Christmas To cat one is to be sure of at least one happy month. But if you wish for a happy twelvemonths, then you must cat a mince ple In each of the twelve days of Christmas.

The Dragon Seed Co.

provides the ono Store here which can solve your problem of

CHRISTMAS Gifts for THE ENTIRE FAMILY

LADIES' SHOES. We have just taken over from an importer his entire consigment of American Model Shoes

NOW BELOW COST

LOW COST $19,90

Boys Suits for boys 8-12 years Splendid Value $85.00

Real English, Porcelain Tea Sets. 21 pieces $52.50.

THOUSANDS OF CHRISTMAS GIFTS SUITABLE FOR EVERY member oF THE FAMILY AT

The Dragon Seed Company

37, QUEEN'S, RD. CO Tol. 32101.