When the boy arrives at the age of serious reasoning, say six or seven, and asks me point-blank if there is really a Santa Claus, I meet the question fairly. I simply decline to answer and give him my reason for so doing. I explain to him that half the fun of the holiday lies in the mystery surrounding St. Nicholas. I tell him, good-humouredly but positively, that he must solve the Santa Claus problem himself. By taking this position I keep square with the boy, and at the same time he is not disillusionised, for he is as willing to cling to the romance as I am to have him--and more so. The custom, particularly prevalent in the large cities, of conducting the boy through the toy department of the stores when the big holiday stocks are on display, is to be deplored. The lavish exhibitions paraded before his eyes cannot fail to dull his appreciation of the home Christmas. In arranging my boy’s Christmas I strive for simplicity. It was Nerissa, I think, in the “Merchant of Venice,” who said: “They are as sick who surfeit with too much, as they that starve with nothing.” The rich--sometimes--pity the poor at Christmas. This is well, for pity looses a purse-string occasionally, and Heaven knows there are enough tight ones! But the fact is, that the children of the moderately poor often get more real joy to a square inch of a Christmas morning than many a little brother of the rich. There can be no great pleasure in receiving when there has been no genuine longing. Only the child who has known want can fully relish realisation. A few modest gifts, judiciously selected, are more permanently satisfying than a lavish display, indiscriminately gathered. I always try to supply my boy with one thing that he most desires, or with a fair compromise between it and what I can afford to buy. If I can meet his anticipations fully in this one gift I do so; but it must be something of a substantial and permanent nature. After which, if my purse permits, I amplify this with a few things of lesser cost and more trivial in character. And here let me record a protest against that modern unnecessary, the perfected toy. By the perfected toy I mean the toy that is not a plaything, but an ingenious contrivance so perfected mechanically that it leaves nothing for the child to do. I protest against the toy that leaves absolutely nothing to either the fancy or the ingenuity of the boy. The imaginative faculty of a child is constantly reaching out for something upon which it may feed and develop. This propensity is stifled by the perfected toy. The railroad outfit that goes into complete operation at the turn of a lever; the doll that walks and talks and has an elaborate trousseau; the soldier equipments that fit a boy out in military style from head to toe--these and all like them are praiseworthy examples of the commercial instinct of the toymakers; but they do not meet the requirements of the child.