Andrew Wynter

“ Torn from their bleak hill-sides, and abstracted from the monotonous long-drawn files of the nursery gardens, how they must be astonished to find themselves suddenly placed in the midst of a mob of bright-eyed children, laden to the very tips of their branches with sweets and packets, and burdened with the light of a hundred twinkling tapers.
But we elder ones also have our Christmas Tree on a larger scale. The great city decorates and lights up and holds out its million hands with presents suitable for the season. ”

“ It is interesting to watch the slow degrees by which the advent of Old Father Christmas is made known. The grocer, for weeks before, makes preparations. His windows are burdened with hills of currants; a desert of brown sugar spreads away into the interior; there is an attempt at modelling the human form divine, in the shape of a man constructed of a dropsical-looking citron stuck upon two cinnamon legs. But art has penetrated even into the domain of the grocer in the shape of bonbon cases from Paris, in which sweets to the taste are daintily wrapped up in sweets to the eye. ”

“ Ten to one but they will give their handiwork a wide berth in the most coquettish manner the moment that tiresome Charley or impudent Fred prepares to accept their invitation in the best possible spirit; and ten to one that before the dance is over, they will, by pure accident, of course, be passing close beneath its mirth-giving shade. ”