New Year's gift

“ Lord North, in his Household Book, charges £40, as his New Year’s Gift to the queen, and £16 10s. given at court at New Year’s tide. It need scarcely be observed that the custom of New Year’s Gifts was prevalent among all classes, and many examples might be given of payments on account of them in the domestic records of the age. ”

“ The custom of giving and receiving strenae for luck at the New Year survives in France (where New Year’s Day is known as le jour d’étrenues) and the Continent generally. In England its place has been taken by the Christmas-gift. In Scotland, where New Year’s Day is more generally observed than Christmas, the custom is still universal. The Persians celebrated the beginning of the year by exchanging presents of eggs. The Druids distributed as New Year’s gifts branches of the sacred mistletoe. In Anglo-Saxon and Norman England New Year’s gifts were common. ”

“ In that spirit, the best gift you can give anyone this year is a simple promise to yourself: If you're going to drink, don't get behind the wheel; if you see a friend about to, don't let him. Make it a New Year's resolution. ”

“ Northumberland.
The following extract, relating to Newcastle-on-Tyne, is taken from the North of England Advertiser of January 4th, 1873:
The children on New Year’s morn are busy begging their New Year’s gifts, saying, “Old Year out, New Year in; please give us my New Year’s gift;” or “A merry Christmas and a happy New Year;” followed by the usual appeal for a present. The first-foot is an important personage. If he should be a dark man, it is a sign of good luck; if a light one not so lucky; but alas! if a woman, the worst luck will befall the household. ”

“ New Year's day then, or the day after, he may go round again visiting house by house, and wish happy New Year; and the people give him according to their means and according to their inclination a gift, smaller or larger, and these gifts belong to his service earnings; it is no begging either, for the stipulation is made at the time he is put in office. With true gladness of heart now in the New Year's night he sings under all the windows in the village; and as he does this, he seems to himself just the same as a priest of God; his office seems to him a right holy one. ”

“ God send you a happy New Year!
For Christ's circumcision this day we keep,
Who for our sins did often weep;
His hands and feet were wounded deep,
And His blessed side with a spear.
His head they crownéd then with thorn,
And at Him they did laugh and scorn,
Who for to save our souls was born:
God send us a happy New Year!
And now with New-Year's gifts each friend
Unto each other they do send;
God grant we may all our lives amend,
And that the truth may appear. ”

“ If every French servant looks for some particular perquisite, they all expect a gratuity at the New Year. One of the greatest curses and greatest blessings which rest upon Paris is the custom of presenting New Year’s gifts. ”

“ New year’s gifts are not yet obsolete, although the practice is losing ground, which is a pity, as it served to strengthen and cement that kind feeling in society, which so many circumstances concur to jar and interrupt. It is now very much confined to interchange of gifts in families, at least in this country. For on the Continent the mutual exchange of presents, in the shape of jewellery, fancy articles, bon-bons, sweetmeats, &c. ”

“ In England, the custom of making Christmas presents and New Year’s gifts had, except among relatives, died out, when a few years ago some apparently childish, but in reality very ingenious, person invented Christmas cards. ”

“ Then you learn that the New Year brings gifts as well as gladness.
But nowadays the giving of presents is not so common as it used to be. Far back in English history the grown-up people gave each other gifts on New [5] Year's Day, and some of these gifts were very beautiful and very costly. Diamond necklaces, gold caskets, jewelled swords, embroidered mantles—these were the kind of gifts which rich people gave to each other at the feast of the New Year. Our English Kings and Queens, in the old days, received many such precious gifts. ”

“ Amongst others, the Concilium Autisiodorense, A.D. 614, in France, decreed, that “It is not lawfull in the Kalends of January to make any bonefires or filthy playes; or to observe any diabolical New Yeares gifts.” [63]
The difference between New-year’s gifts and Christmas boxes appears to be, that the former were mutually exchanged, or, indeed, were some times in the nature of an offering from an inferior to a superior, who made some acknowledgment in return, while the latter were in the nature of gratuities from superiors to their dependants. ”

“ The custom of giving presents on New Year's Day is as old as the time of the Romans, who attached superstitious importance to it, and thought the gifts brought them a lucky year. Our Christian forefathers retained the pleasant custom when its superstitious origin was long forgotten. Fathers and mothers used to delight each other and their little ones by their mutual gifts ”

“ Reflect upon your present blessings—of which every man has many—not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some. Fill your glass again with a merry face and contented heart. Our life on it, but your Christmas shall be merry and your New Year a happy one.
“So may the New Year be a happy one to you, happy to many more whose happiness depends on you! ”

“ Welcome, merry Christmas and New-Year! prized by children above all other days in the year. Ye are associated with pleasant recollections of old Santa Claus and sugar-plums—with bright visions of a cheerful fireside, merry games, pleasant stories, and happy, smiling faces. First comes Christmas Eve, when each young face beams with eager curiosity and delightful anticipation—all wondering and guessing what they shall find in their stockings next morning ”

“ A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! It is an inspiring delight to hear and speak the greeting. It is a phrase that comes down to us from the ages. All the more gladly do we repeat it on that account. There are some things, thank God, even in this world, that never grow old. The greetings of Christmas and New Year are among them. ”

“ Great gifts should be worn, like a crown befitting,
And not like gems in a beggar's hands!
And the toil must be constant and unremitting
Which lifts up the king to the crown's demands.
THE YEAR
What can be said in New Year rhymes,
That's not been said a thousand times?
The new years come, the old years go,
We know we dream, we dream we know.
We rise up laughing with the light,
We lie down weeping with the night.
We hug the world until it stings,
We curse it then and sigh for wings.
We live, we love, we woo, we wed,
We wreathe our brides, we sheet our dead. ”

“ Its smiles and its tears, its hopes and its fears,
Its labors and duties, all done.
We stand face to face with the New Year,
Nor know what it hides from our sight;
God grant that it be kind to you, and to me,
That it lead us in ways that are light.
The bells in the steeples are joyful,
The children are shouting in glee,
There is mirth and good cheer in the happy New Year--
All hail to young '73! ”

“ Every year the Christmas candles shining down on an addition to our treasures. Every year the gifts of past Christmases gathered about the tree again, bigger and stronger instead of being lost or broken as they would have been if they had been any other kind of gift. ”

“ Next to Christmas-day, the most pleasant annual epoch in existence is the advent of the New Year. There are a lachrymose set of people who usher in the New Year with watching and fasting, as if they were bound to attend as chief mourners at the obsequies of the old one. ”

“ Who does not feel its on-coming in the shops and streets, in the festive air of trade and business, in the thousand garnitures by which every store hangs out triumphal banners and solicits you to buy something for a Christmas gift? For it is the peculiarity of all this array of prints, confectionery, dry goods, and manufactures of all kinds, that their bravery and splendor at Christmas tide is all to seduce you into generosity, and importune you to give something to others. ”

“ Who wheels the seasons in their mazy course,
While hand in hand their measured round they trode.
Maker of the new-born year,
Great Creator, bending, hear;
Lo! we bow in adoration,
Join the chorus of creation.
Thine the flowery spring's perfume,
Thine the glowing summer's bloom,
Thine the autumn's varied dyes,
Freshening fruits and cloudless skies ”

“ Trotty might have read a poor man’s allegory in the fading year; but he was past that, now.
And only he? Or has the like appeal been ever made, by seventy years at once upon an English labourer’s head, and made in vain!
The streets were full of motion, and the shops were decked out gaily. The New Year, like an Infant Heir to the whole world, was waited for, with welcomes, presents, and rejoicings. There were books and toys for the New Year, glittering trinkets for the New Year, dresses for the New Year, schemes of fortune for the New Year; new inventions to beguile it. ”

“ cried Scrooge, laughing and crying in the same breath; and making a perfect Laocoön of himself with his stockings. “I am as light as a feather, I am as happy as an angel, I am as merry as a schoolboy. I am as giddy as a drunken man. A merry Christmas to everybody! A happy New Year to all the world. Hallo here! ”

“ A Christmas Wish
For All My Friends
While Christmas bells are chiming, oh, may there come to you
A dear sweet little fairy, who's always good and true;
The little HAPPY FAIRY, who drives away dull care,
And makes all things upon the earth seem ever bright and fair.
She'll whisper to good Santa to bring what you most wish;
So if you have been longing for a fine pudding dish,
He will not, as in by-gone years, forget and bring to you
Something that you do not want, though beautiful and new. ”

“ At Christmas and New Year's parties the distribution of presents is a very important feature; Christmas trees are now rather discarded in favour of greater novelties. "Father Christmas," "Santa Claus," [p.194] "The Fairy Godmother," "The Fairies' Well," or the "Lucky Bag" and "The Magic Log," are some of the many devices for the distribution of presents; these popular characters are represented by grown-up persons, and provoke much wonder and admiration amongst children. The presents are usually given at the close of the evening. ”

“ I feel sure that you children do not give or receive your Christmas boxes in that manner. If you have any little gift to bestow upon the people who do you a service throughout the year, you will do it cheerfully. And if any one gives you a little gift, do not turn it over and over looking at all sides, but accept it with thankfulness and a cheerful countenance. ”

“ A very grave and sweet look came into the girlish face, as she followed his glance and saw the star in the east shining brightly through the swaying pine boughs.
“Christmas, Christmas,” he whispered. “Oh, my darling, what a gift He is giving me on his birthday—how much more precious than the gold and frankincense He received eighteen hundred years ago!”
So they glide along as blessed as if the poor old sleigh, with its odorous load of evergreen and holly, were a heavenly chariot bearing them away from everything low and bad and wretched in the world, [Pg 125] until they draw near the city. ”

“ The love and cheer associated with Christmas will always be the best thing about it. How often just a good word that conveys the word-giver’s generosity of spirit enriches people! I remember the “Merry Christmas, sir!” of a gray-haired woman scrubbing stone steps at a college in Cambridge, England, during the war; and recollection of her sturdy, cheerful, kind nature brightens my world. I can hear my mother’s “Christmas Gift” or “Merry Christmas” as I write these words. Whoever heard her greeting received a gift, for she meant every syllable of it, felt every tone in it. ”

“ There is an omen called “Setting the New Year in,”—that if the kindly office is performed by some one with dark hair, good fortune will smile on the household; while it augurs ill if a light-haired person is the first to enter the house in the New Year. ”

“ As I have grown older, and have seen Christmas-giving develop into a duty and a burden, and often a burden hard to bear, I have come to believe less and less in this sort of indiscriminate matter-of-course gift-making. If one really wishes to make a present, it should be offered freely from the heart as well as from the hand, and given without regard to Christmas day. ”

“ And now, dear Cousin Margaret, can you see a little what that Christmas box has been to us? I can't bear to say, "Thank you"; it seems so commonplace and inadequate. And yet there is n't anything else I can say. And we do thank you, each and every one of us. We thank you both for our own gift, and for all the others, for each one's gift is making all the others happy. Do you see? Oh, I hope you do see and that you do understand that we appreciate all the care and pains you must have taken to select just the present that each of us most longed for.
Lovingly and gratefully yours,
Mary. ”

“ If we get the spirit of giving because of Him whose birthday it is, we shall love to give, and our hearts will go out with our gifts,—and every gift, whether great or small, will be a thoughtful message of love from one to another. There are now many people, of course, who have this true spirit of Christmas giving, and they are the people who most earnestly wish that they had more. ”