December 1943

WARTIME Christmas Gifts BEYOND PRICE

A YOUNG MOTHER-- two little folks at her heels and her arms full of bundles-- left a "supermarket" recently. One of her thin paper bags burst, strewing the sidewalk with oranges, and writing dismay across her features.

LATE TIPS ON Wartime Living

Adequate supplies of complete balanced plant food are assured for 1944 vegetable gardens, but there'll be a shipping problem when the spring demand comes. If you go to your dealer and buy yours now, before you need it, you'll be sure of having it when garden time comes.

HOW TO Keep Your Radio Top Notch

YOUR RADIO is a lot more valuable to you today than it was before Pearl Harbor. And while it has been growing in importance, the difficulties of keeping it working well have increased, too.

THE DIARY OF A Plain Dirt Gardener

Dec.1 Fretted and fumed and sputtered to myself all day. This is day I have no class at think factory. No homework at desk that had to be done. Free as the birdies. All that delayed garden work to do. And it rained all day-- when it wasn't trying to snow.

Your Best for Everyday

ON THIS CHRISTMAS, men and women all around the world are keenly aware that, of all the world's riches, "East, West, home's best." In Asia or the South Pacific, in Italy or England, each is remembering some lighted house, some welcoming door, to which he will return when victory comes.

Tomorrow's Gifts Today

DECEMBER INDOOR GARDENING GUIDE

SCRAPBOOK OF DORMERS

Windows THAT RADIATE CHEER

Kitchens Be Gay

Our Hobbies "Come Home"

Trim for Christmas

Token Gifts ARE ON THE BEAM

FOR our third war Christmas token gifts are on the beam-- presents that cost a dollar or two or three at the most. Let's have Santa without lavish spending You bet it's harder, but prove it can be done Shop for necessities, bright little morale builders that are really useful.

Christmas Twinkles for Your Holiday Meals

If You're Using Margarine

Baby's First Wardrobe

"WHAT clothes shall I have ready for my baby?" is always one of the big questions with a young mother. Now there's an even bigger one: "How can I get the clothes I need for my baby?"

Cooking Secrets

EVERY cook worth her salt has certain secret kitchen ways-- little tricks so personal that they never get into the recipe books, tricks as individual as a mannerism of speech or a way of doing one's hair.

Long Live Your Hooked Rugs!

I KNOW at least a dozen effective ways to ruin a beautiful hooked rug. I've even tried some of them! Yet the proper care of hooked rugs is absurdly simple, once you know, what to do and which mistakes never to commit. From 10 years of trial and error, with a house full of hooked beauties, I've formulated these dependable rules

They Stuffed a Bird, Filled a Sweet Tooth, Got a Prize

OYSTERS get the bird... the bird gets the prize... and Miss Theresa M. Lessmeister of Peru, Illinois takes a bow! She's top winner (there's a check in your stocking, T.M.L.) of our Cooks' Free-For-All for Holiday Bird Stuffers and Christmas Sweets, battle joined last May.

USE YOUR Family Relics

POKE around on the top shelf of your cupboard or pantry. You'll find them, sure as anything-- those family relics "of no earthly use."

THE MAN NEXT DOOR

WITH THE U. S. ARMY OVERSEAS-- If the b. w. continues to write that letter-a-day, I calculate that on Christmas I'll receive her 206th letter overseas. That entitled her to at least 206 Sunday breakfasts in bed after the war (if I can get up before she gets hungry).

500% ON A SERE THING!

HOW'D you like to make $396.48 grow into $2,631.98-- and on an investment that's the nearest to a sure thing we human beings can devise? A man in Philadelphia did that recently, and it's a fact that every year hundreds of us do as well and sometimes even better on the same kind of investment.

POUR YOURSELF A Garden Seat

Young Mothers' Exchange

Many thanks for the lovely letters so many of you have sent with your contributions to the Young Mothers' Exchange. I only wish I could answer each one personally.

Hurry With Your Gift Orders!

Landscape That Back Door

We Like Modern, but...

...it seems to us that some examples are too streamlined and efficient to be genuinely livable.

DECEMBER OUTDOOR GARDENING GUIDE

WHOLLY aside from the food value, there's a joy hard to equal that comes from gathering ripened nuts in the fall when the woods' floor is covered with brown leaves and the late autumn sun takes the chill from the air. You'll get this same thrill if your woods are few and stand in your back garden.

Scrapbook of Dormers