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1. Looking Forward to Christmas

Christmas comes but once a year, but its enjoyment need not be limited to a few crowded days in December. Anything so nice as Christmas deserves to be anticipated a long time in advance and remembered a long time afterwards. This is true to many pleasures. Much of the fun of a trip is found in planning it, deciding where to go, what to see, what to wear, how much to spend. So why not spread the fun of this festival through the year, by planning and preparing for it in every season?

A good time to look forward to Christmas is when you have just finished enjoying one. Then you may be full of ideas for next year. And if you plan to make your own decorations, there will be added delight in finding and storing the materials you will need-and in getting them as cheaply as possible.

A shopping spree right after Christmas may disclose some exciting bargains. Many expensive decorations are sold at half price or less, because it would require too much space to store them for another season. A small closet shelf would hold them easily, together with tree ornaments and lights, and it will be like finding treasure-trove to discover them there next December.

On the same shelf might be kept a special Christmas notebook. It would contain addresses of stores that carry the things needed to make a Merry Christmas. Certain stores specialize in candles. It is convenient to know where they are when candles are wanted. There are out-of-the-way gift shops which can supply unusual candle holders in various sizes and designs. Make a note of them; then buy the holders when your plans for Christmas decorating are complete

It may even be a good idea to do a little housecleaning when Christmas is over. Why keep damaged decorations for another year? Tree ornaments in poor colors or silly shapes might as well be discarded at once.

Summer can be a productive season for the farsighted planner. Vacation trips may take us to places where cones, seed pods, bark, twigs and other materials can be had for the taking. Sources of useful materials, such as evergreens, berries, moss, wire and thread may be listed in the notebook. Some are difficult to get when everybody is buying in December. If they will store well, it is wise to acquire them when they are easily available.

There are adventures waiting for those who keep their eyes open, with Christmas in mind. While traveling in Texas a few years ago, I came across a beautiful white berry and brought some sprays back to Philadelphia. The berry is hard, pure white, and does not drop or shake off when dry. It resembles the familiar snowberry (Sym-phoricarpos albus), but has good qualities which the snowberry and bayberry lack. In Texas it is called Chinese tallow berry; in Charleston, South Carolina, the natives call it popcorn. The botanical name is Sapium sebiferum. It is the finest white berry I have ever found for Christmas decorations, and few northerners know about it or use it. I wouldn't know about it myself, probably, if I had not been thinking of Christmas in Philadelphia while traveling in Texas.

More familiar materials are plentiful in the early fall. Bayberry should be gathered then, the leaves removed, and branches tied in bunches and hung in an airy place to dry out thoroughly. Later on, in October or early November, branches of black alder berries (Ilex verti-cillata) may be cut and kept in water until needed. They will last much better than those bought in the shops, which have been in storage for some time.

Science has recently come to the aid of the decorator. By spraying with hormone preparations, many fruits and leaves or needles can be prevented from dropping. For those kept standing in water, it helps to add a complete fertilizer, one teaspoonful, or two or three tablets, per quart of water. The cut branches will continue to grow for some time and keep fresh for Christmas.

Obviously, not every attractive fruit or berry can be preserved for use some weeks or months later. A good guide is a pair of observant eyes; berries which stay on the bushes well into the winter can usually be kept fresh indoors for a long time. Examples are the red fruits of the multiflora rose, and the heavenly bamboo (Nandina domestica).

The mechanical aids of the decorator-wires of various weights, florists* thread, shellac and sharp shears-ought to be picked up and put away well in advance of their seasonal use. It will cost more money and take a lot of time to buy them when the shopping rush is on.

At any time of the year, next Christmas can be a thing of beauty in the mind's eye. It is a pleasant employment on a quiet evening to make plans, change them and make new ones. In the actual holiday excitement there may be no time for doing a really thoughtful and artistic job.

According to Emerson, an Indian once answered a white man who complained that he had no time, "You have all the time there is." The trouble is we don't always have it when we need it. The right time for planning is when there are not too many other things to do.

In out-of-season thinking, a few fundamentals should be kept in mind. It is important for decorations to harmonize with the house. Over-decoration is bad; it cheapens the total effect. A few well-made and carefully placed decorations will be far more attractive than a clutter of inferior ones.

Where there are wide windows, garlands may be appropriate across the tops. Large rooms may permit garlands around mantels or draped over banisters. But an evergreen ball suspended in a hall or doorway, or a candle board decoration on a window sill may be more effective in a small house.

Formal houses require a corresponding formality in treatment. The colors used are important. Too many people consider a confusion of colors appropriate for Christmas. Red and green and white are traditional, but there is no law on the subject. Modern taste approves blue and silver, or other combinations that suit the room and house in which they are used.

Size is important in respect to color. Too much heavy color in a small place may create a cramped and stuffy effect. Neither should small rooms be overloaded with evergreen boughs or wreaths or sprays. The ideal is good proportion.

It is an established custom in many homes to remove the Christmas decorations on a particular date. It is better to discard them while they are attractive than to become bored with them. There is nothing that looks more miserable than a tree which has outlasted its welcome, or a dried up wreath which has lost the life and sparkle which first gave it meaning.

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