The Daily Dispatch: December 23, 1865., [Electronic resource]

The great problem of Christmas, with all who are not afflicted by the general malady of chronic impecuniousness, is what to buy for a Christmas present. The patron saint, Kriss Kringle, St. Nicholas, or by whatever other name that most charming and amiable of all the saints is known, must find Christmas the most perplexing of all the festivals. We mean no disrespect to the other saints who figure on the church calendar when we bestow upon this one special commendation. But Kriss Kringle or St. Nicholas is the only one of them whose acquaintance we ever made, or who ever visits the earth in a tangible shape. Certainly, if the other canonized persons resemble him in a bounteous, obliging disposition, we should be very glad to be on intimate terms with them all.

There are an immensity of stockings to be hung up Sunday night, an illimitable forest of Christmas trees to be planted, and innumerable millions of little children whose hearts are beating wildly at this moment with conjectures of Kriss Kringle's designs with reference to those stockings and trees. We are not more astonished at the sublime unselfishness and inexhaustible resources of Kriss, than his extraordinary ability to surmount the great difficulty of Christmas-- what to buy. Somehow or other, he generally does work out that perplexing problem, and generally to the satisfaction of all concerned. What a deal of time he must spend in studying the shop windows and inspecting the bewildering variety of their attractions ! Sometimes, when his funds are low, the good saint must be a sad as well as a puzzled saint, yet he never appears to us more amiable than just then.--To see him trudging along, and trying to make some little children happy, but without the means to do it as he would wish, is a sight that must enlist the sympathy of all his brother saints, and, no doubt, will induce them all, one of these days, to open their purse-strings, and make it even with those little children, who seem to be somewhat neglected now.

After all, the best Chritmas gift is the love and affection that prompt the outward tokens and impart value to them, if they are ever so cheap and commonplace. But it ought not to be forgotten by those who have the means to give, that there are many habitations in this city in which no stockings can be hung up, no Christmas tress planted, and whose inmates would be only too happy to obtain the bare means of life. There can be no difficulty in solving the question--what Christmas gift to bestow upon them.