't any Santa Claus, what does he put all the sample toys in
the stores for every Christmas so boys and girls can see what they
want? If he doesn't fill the stockings, who does, I'd like to know.
Some folks say that father and mother do it--but s'posin, they do, it's
only to help Santa Claus sometimes when he's late or overworked, or
something like that.

The Spirit of Christmas is Santa Claus--else how could he get around to
everybody in the whole world at exactly the same time of the night?

There is a new high-power motor in my garage. It came to me
yesterday--Christmas. It is very beautiful, and it cost a great deal of
money, a very great deal. If we were in the Little Old Town it would
take us all out to Aunt Em's farm in ten minutes. (It always took her
an hour to drive in with the old spotted white mare.)

I am quite happy to have this wonderful new horse of today, and there
is some warmth inside of me as I walk around it in the garage while
Henry, its keeper, flicks with his chamois every last vestige of dust
from its shiny sides.

And yet ... how gladly would I give it up if only I could have been in
my feather bed last night--if I could have awakened at daybreak and
crept softly, red-flanneled and barefooted, to the parlor door--if I
could have groped for grandmother's stocking and felt its lumpy shape
respond to my eager touch--and if I could have known the thrill of that
dapple-grey rocking-horse when I flung my arms around its neck and
buried my face in its silken mane!

Butter, Eggs, Ducks, Geese

It seems mighty convenient to telephone your grocer to send up a pound
of butter and have it come all squeezed tight into a nice
square-cornered cardboard box whose bright and multi-colored label
assures you that the butter has been properly deodorized fumigated,
washed, sterilized, antisepticized and conforms in every other respect
to the Food and Drugs Act, Serial 1762973-A. You read the label again
and feel reasonably safe at meals.

Huh! Precious little grandmother knew about that kind of butter!

Hers came in a basket--a great big worn-brown-and-shiny, round bottom,
willow basket, hand-wove. It didn't come in any white-and-gold delivery
wagon, either. It was delivered by a round-faced, rosy-checked,
gingham-gowned picture of health, whose apron-strings barely met around
the middle--for Frau Hummel brought it herself--after having first
milked the cows with her own hands and wielded the churn