December 26.
Dear Girls: We had a great day yesterday. Of course, Mother and the girls and Charley broke through the rule we had prescribed for ourselves, not to give Christmas presents, and launched upon Jane and me wholly unprepared, a flood of pretty and useful things. . . . We dined at Mary’s, and there Mother was made happy by a superb dish of moss, growing and trailing over, and set in a carved walnut table or stand which Mary brought from Germany. . . . Our children’s “Christmas tree” went off very successfully. Little May came over early and did the honors as nicely as could be to the arriving guests, introducing them all to each other and providing amusement. There were the three little Howlands and their mamma, the Prentisses and theirs, Mally and Willy Smith and theirs, little Kernochan, little Parker boy, and Mary and Helen Skinner with the Rhinelander children. The tree was in the back parlor with the doors closed and windows darkened, and the effect was very pretty when the candles and the lanterns were all ready and the doors were thrown open, and the tree blazed out in its own light. Each child had half a dozen little things and was delighted, choosing, when left to him or herself, the most hideous Chinese toys only intended as decorations. Then there were ice cream and jelly, which the older people helped eat, and Mr. Prentiss came in, and the children gradually went away–and we subsided into quiet.