Christmas Advice From Alamance Gleaner, Dec. 25, 1919

From the front page of the Alamance Gleaner, Graham, N.C., Dec. 25, 1919

A Few Don’ts for Christmas

Don’t court indigestion.

Don’t grumble, whatever you do.

Don’t half fill the kiddies’ stockings.

Don’t give presents which will be useless.

Don’t forget the mistletoe. Romance still lives.

Don’t forget that it ought to be a merry Christmas.

Don’t deny the little ones’ ideas about Santa Claus.

Don’t worry about unpaid bills—at any rate until tomorrow.

Don’t scoff at the lingering superstitions of the good old days.

Don’t for the show of things, buy presents which you can’t afford.

Don’t expect too many presents. Take what you get and be thankful.

Don’t, if you get up on your wrong side, make everybody else miserable.

Don’t forget to think at least once during the day what Christmas really means.

Don’t give a present unless you want to. Better not give at all than give insincerely.

Don’t forget that the giving of Christmas boxes, like charity, should begin at home.

Don’t, if you are a girl, stand under the mistletoe until you see the right chap approaching.

Don’t kiss somebody else’s best girl, even though she is under the mistletoe. There might be a row.

Don’t work on Christmas day if you can avoid it. If you have to, however, don’t make a song about it.

Don’t give Johnnie a trumpet and Peter a whistle and expect to have a quiet time. It’s unreasonable.

Don’t send an electric runabout to a freezing widow with five starving children. This is like throwing a rope of pearls to a drowning man.

Don’t look pained with somebody tells a fifty-year-old Christmas story. That’s one of the unavoidable circumstances of the festive season.

Don’t give a new song to some one who doesn’t sing; but be still more certain that you don’t give a new song to some one who imagines he can sing.

Don’t refrain from giving because you can’t afford to give much. The intrinsic value of a gift counts for nothing. It is the thought which prompts it that matters.

Don’t let the wife give you a Christmas present in the form of cigars. If she persists in doing so, don’t smoke them—give them away again, without letting her know about it, of course.