OCR Text |
Show OUR CHRISTMAS IN CALIFORNIA. <br><br> We were in Los Angeles. Instead of snow covered fields, icy walks, sleighing parties muffled and fur covered, we looked out on rich green lawns, gay with roses, geraniums, callas and honeysuckle, on orange orchards yellow with luscious, ripening fruit, on clean streets neither dusty nor muddy, and alive with gay carriages, and crowds of pedestrians, - a fourth of July procession, - and on hills as green as a New England June. To such as must have skating, sleighrides, or coasting for Christmas festivities, this would be a disappointment. To us, who a few days before had left Cache Valley when the mercury stood at 15 degrees below, it was a pleasant change. Turkeys grow just as vigorously, submit to decapitation just as meekly, and make just as juicy a Christmas dinner in the land of perpetual summer as any where. Pumpkin pie is quite as toothsome. Then think of great delicate flavored strawberries, on the vines Christmas morning, on the table for dinner! Think of the immense, naval oranges, the most delicious of fruits, brought in from the garden, as we bring in peaches in August 1. Think of a table, decorated with rare flowers, fresh from the lawn, and surrounded by friends whom you thought nearer the Atlantic than the Pacific, and you have a part of our Christmas. But this holiday is never complete without a drive. The visitor to Los Angeles who does not make some excursions into the neighboring residence towns misses one of the greatest pleasures. The roads are fine, the drives romantic, the horses spirited, the weather a shadow - no a sunshine - beyond perfection. The road to Passadena, nine miles distant, winds about hills of rich pasture, vast orchards of oranges, walnuts, and deciduous fruits, great vineyards, and stock-ranches, - the home of Stamboul - passes the San Gabriel Mission, a wonderful adobe church in an ancient Mexican village, and brings one to the finest residence town near the coast. Passadena is the home of eastern capitalists, who having made vast fortunes, have sought, and found one of the loveliest spots on earth to enjoy them. Here every thing that wealth can purchase, ingenuity devise or cultivated taste suggests is richly provided. Elegant dwellings, of varied but always tasteful architecture, expensive lawns adorned with palms, peppers, fernoskes and all sorts of ornamental shrubs and flowers in great variety and tropical luxuriance, and fountains of remarkable beauty, make the place a veritable Eden.<br><br> The northerner forgets in this rich midsummer scenery that it really is midwinter. He is likely to forget that it is Christmas. But driving back to his hotel, seeing in one set of parlors a company of poor children gathered from destitute homes, now receiving gifts from the brilliant Christmas tree prepared by his hosts daughters, and noticing the glad smiles of gratitude, as the little people file by their benefactresses, and, arms full, or aprons full, or hats full of trinkets, receive their "Good night, happy New Year!" and seeing in another set of parlors a gay company of young people dancing to joyous music, - he is reminded that the essentials of Christmas are the same the world over, that this is really Christmas in California, the anniversary of His birth who brought "Peace on earth, good will to men." E.R. MacEwan, Logan, Jan. 3, 1893. |