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By Jim Bell AN OLD-FASHIONED CHRISTMAS Those dear old days that have gone beyond recall, Row we old- er folk love to recall, them, especially the good pld-fashion- ed Christmas a5 we used to celé~ jbrate it. To-day it is all so dif- ferent. We buy a tree. We used to go to the woods and get one, To-day we go down town and buy all the trimmings to decor- ate it with. Years ago we had to make our own decorations. Chains of coloured paper, pop- corn strings and balls, cotton batting snow, candles instead of electric lights, nice red apples, pine cones, Mountain Ash ber- ries that we had gathered in the fall and kept carefully for the occasion, Then the star. What a time it was making it. We would make a pattern first. If you have never tried to draw a star and don't know just how to go at it, | it is quite a job. Just try it some time, you'll be surprised, Then to get something shiny to cover it with. Oh what a time it was with the cooking, baking and try- ing to keep secrets. How we Joved it-and how we revel in the ' memories of it. | ‘The gifts were never very ex- pensive and lots of them were home-made, because sometimes “money was pretty s¢arce in the + ‘| REMEMBER winter. After breakfast, Christ- mas morning, we would all gath- er round and some one of the asters was ch to give out the gifts and let me tell you, that if we were chosen it was one of the proudest times of our lives. There was one place that I knew well, where Christmas was made much of, where there was adear old grandmother, who usually sat in a big rocking} chair, wearing a neat black dress and wearing « little white lace cap, called a Much on her head, After the gifts were all distribu- ted she would get up and dance around the tree much to the de- Nght of the younger ones. Sometimes it was not possible to have a tree. If the weather Was very stormy and the snow! deep, we had to be content with just hanging up our stockings, If there was a fireplace, of course) that was where they were hung,| so they would be handy when old Santa came sliding down the chimney, Yes, I am afraid the old, uncommercialized Christ- mas would be ridiculed in these | fast-moving times but thank the xood Lord, whose birthday we celebrate, we were taught why we did celebrate it and we were not allowed to forget it either. So let us hold this Christmas joyfully and thankfully and “May: tt gift though great or 1 sma Remind us of God's gift to all.”