December 1938

ACROSS THE Editor's Desk

To the Head of the Family: The love of home and family is precious to all of us. All too soon comes the day of parting-- all too soon children, grown up, leave to hew to a line of their own.

THE DIARY of a Plain Dirt Gardener

Dec. 1 Yesterday, instead of keeping up the work of mulching the roses with soil, I went back to our ravine with Donald to saw wood. Well, last night it froze up hard. This afternoon when I tried to go on with the covering up, alas, the ground was too hard. Here and there I managed to scrape up enough loose dirt.

It's News to Me!

Where gas is your fuel, a forced-air circulating heater, styled for the living-room, solves the heating problems in temperate climate or in a small home. It comes assembled, is 26 x 16½ inches, 40 inches high, has a thermostat. A fan in it circulates winter heat, cools in the summertime.

CHRISTMAS Across a Nation

CHRISTMAS comes to this America of ours from almost as many lands as we have peoples. It's a glorious potpourri of the world's best-loved customs, brought here by our forefathers and observed, with only slight modification, down thru the years.

All Thru the House

BETTER HOMES & GARDENS' Gift SUGGESTIONS

Outdoor Gardening Guide

DECEMBER is never long enough to do all the garden work I'd like to do. What I mean is, you can often do more gardening in December than any other month by reading and learning. What a wealth of material is available!

Christmas Among Ourselves

EVERY year around Christmastime, in a cabin on Lake Michigan's shore, there's a lively party for a score or so of young men ... "with a tree and a log fire and plenty of hot coffee," writes Morris G. McGawn, Three Oaks, Michigan. A civic leader, for many years he has taken keen interest in the Doy Scouts and other youth groups.

The Carols We Sing

BECAUSE an organ broke down, and a blizzard broke out in a little village high up in the Tyrolese Mountains over a century ago, we have today the beautiful Christmas hymn Silent Night.

Out in the Yard

IF SANTA'S wiggled down your chimney a good many times since the first tiny stocking was hung, the chances are he's already left a big share of the things children long for-- the electric train, the bicycle, the skates and sleds, plus plenty of supplies for the downstairs game room. Dominoes, table tennis, paints, and modeling clay have arrived, been duly appreciated, and, no doubt, are already more or less destroyed.

In by the Fireplace

WE DON'T get half as much fun as we should out of our fireplaces. In summer they're too likely to be just so many exposed wastebaskets-- places to throw cigaret ashes and yesterday's newspapers. In winter we do a bit better, toasting ourselves dreamily as the flames lick their way up the chimney, consuming quantities of cordwood or coal.

NOEL DECORETTES

GIVE A Spicy Pomander

SOMETHING new, yet ever so old, are clove apples and oranges--spicy gifts for Christmas or bridge parties, fragrant additions for your own cedar chests, clothes closets, and linen shelves.

C. L. U.

PERHAPS, if you've been presented with a calling card bearing the initials "C. L. U.," you've wondered what they meant. You know there's a life-insurance man outside, but what's that degree on his card?

THE MAN NEXT DOOR

For use in his endless war games with spears and bows and arrows, our 5-year-old has coined one of the most useful new words of the year 1938-- "frenemy," a person who is your friend part of the time and your enemy the rest of the time.... He says the woods are full of 'em.

Whims & Hobbies

Nearly 300 different representations of the Madonna make up the collection of Mrs. R. A. Zimmerman, wife of a Menominee, Wisconsin druggist.

PEASANT ANGELS

Large Angel Pattern: Make a 16½-inch circle, using lightweight cardboard. Mark off one quarter-section and add 4 inches of adjoining quarter-section (Chart 1). Draw lines X and Y. Measure ⅜ inch from lines X and Y for tabs and underlap. On line Y, 1 inch from lower curve mark ½-inch tab.

Books for Tots and Bigger

WHETHER Santa Claus drives his reindeer this year or flies thru the air in a new airplane, he loves to use books for Christmas ballast, because he knows that long after the toys are broken and forgotten a beloved book will bring joy and satisfaction to his boys and girls.

Butter Tricks

HAVE you tried these widgets and ways with butter, to make the service especially interesting?

Bet a Cookie You Can't Tie These Winners

OR IF you can, you certainly should have strutted your culinary talents in our last June's contest for Christmas Cookies, Hard Candies, and Popcorn Confections. For now comes the pay-off, with Gertrude C. Keil, of Chicago, Illinouis, heading the list and taking first prize of $5 with the cleverest Santa-Claus and Christmas-Tree Cookies you ever munched and crunched upon.

Honor Your Little Meals

THERE'S something about that phrase "eating in the kitchen" which gives me the shudders. You all know the too-frequent setup-- Johnny wedged between the water-heater and the wall, to his open disgust; Sister hating the smell of cooking cabbage; baby reaching the dessert from his vantage point near the drainboard.

Along the Garden Path

FAVORITE garden tools are something like fountain pens. We grow accustomed to their peculiarities and we don't like to trust them to others. This trait, tho well nigh universal, isn't especially admirable. Probably The Week-End Gardeners' League should view it with alarm, for not many implements are likely to be damaged by a brief excursion into the territory of a temporary master.