Christmas festivities in Australia are carried on in what we should call "summer weather." There is no lack of good cheer and good living, but cold and snow are at this season unknown, and skating and snowballing, as a consequence, are sports unheard of at Christmastide by the youth in the Antipodes. Large parties and excursions are often arranged for spending a short time in the parks and fields, and Christmas picnics partake much of the character of English "gipsy-parties." The inhabitants being chiefly English, many of the ceremonies customary in English homes are observed, and the changes that are made are enforced for the most part by the difference in climate, and by the altered circumstances under which the various festivities are arranged. In "A Summer Christmas," Douglas B. W. Sladen thus describes the Australian festivities:-- "The Christmas dinner was at two, And all that wealth or pains could do Was done to make it a success; And marks of female tastefulness, And traces of a lady's care, Were noticeable everywhere. The port was old, the champagne dry, And every kind of luxury Which Melbourne could supply was there. They had the staple Christmas fare, Roast beef and turkey (this was wild), Mince-pies, plum-pudding, rich and mild, One for the ladies, one designed For Mr. Forte's severer mind, Were on the board, yet in a way It did not seem like Christmas day With no gigantic beech yule-logs Blazing between the brass fire-dogs, And with 100 deg. in the shade On the thermometer displayed. Nor were there Christmas offerings Of tasteful inexpensive things, Like those which one in England sends At Christmas to his kin and friends, Though the Professor with him took A present of a recent book For Lil and Madge and Mrs. Forte, And though a card of some new sort Had been arranged by Lil to face At breakfast everybody's place. When dinner ended nearly all Stole off to lounges in the hall. * * * * * All save the two old folks and Lil, Who made their hearts expand and thrill By playing snatches, slow and clear, Of carols they'd been used to hear Some half a century ago At High Wick Manor, when the two Were bashful maidens: they talked on, Of England and what they had done On byegone Christmas nights at home, Of friends beyond the Northern foam, And friends beyond that other sea, Yet further--whither ceaselessly Travellers follow the old track, But whence no messenger comes back." CHRISTMAS IN NEW ZEALAND. In 1887, we received a letter from Mr. W. M. Stanton, of Nelson, New Zealand, giving the following interesting account of the colonists' observance of Christmas:--