CHRISTMAS TREES
I may be out of date, but the most pathetic thing to me is the artificial Christmas tree, the sort of half-brush affair coated with ready- made frost. Surely it is the invention of a cynic who passed from that to making imita- tion holly. He was inspired, no doubt, by the fact that cotton wool passes well enough for snow, and it is, after all, the illusion that counts. I wish him well in the provision of illusion, but there is a certain pleasure to be had in decorating a Christmas tree and not a little to be had in breathing the scent of conifers while doing so, Without the evergreert the true tradition of Christmas is missing. If the tree is a synthetic thing to be brought from the cupboard .and dusted, one might just as well sit down to mock turkey and leave the last detail of the festival to the manufacturer of flavour and illusion, as far removed from it all as the big store Father Christmas grumbling in his beard at the jostling children. Conserve the young fir trees, says a writer to my daily newspaper. He had never heard of Scrooge,
I suppose.
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