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   The other evening I was looking over a mail-order catalog and I
got a start--it only goes to show what you can get from those mail-order
catalogues.
   But this had to do with a Christmas tree.  There it was with a picture and
a description--"a beautiful folding Xmas tree with 55 branches, very
handsome, shpg. weight lbs. for 99c--catalogue number 69F3458.  Make your
home a cheerful inviting spot during the Holidays."  And on top of that it
explained that if it didn't come up to the description you could bundle it up
and send it back.
   How times have improved!  When you were young, you didn't have a
folding Christmas tree with fifty-five branches nor a million-dollar mansion
to guarantee satisfaction.  Not much!
   How much simpler and better to-day.  All you have to do is just to fill out the
order blank--PRINT, not write, the name--and get the handsome object.
And fifty-five folding branches!
   In the old days people didn't have all the wonderful comforts of a machine
civilization.  The night before Christmas the children hung up their stock-
ings and actually thought that Santa Claus came down the chimney.  And
the relatives all got together and became acquainted again.  Now they go
to the movies.  They can see among other things a woman tempted for fifty-
odd minutes by the Other Man and then in the last thirty-two seconds re-
pent her shallow life and decide to become a Good Woman.  Some of 'em
can make it in less, even in twenty-eight seconds, but this has not the sanc-
tion of practice.  The more conservative stick to the thirty-two and the
children have come to expect it.
   In the old days no one would have thought it possible; now it is being
done nightly.
   In the old days people had to get their pleasures in the home, but now about
all they get in their home are the incoming telephone calls--and you know
what the service is.  Now if the children sit around home Christmas after-
noon they consider their time practically wasted--dad isn't half as funny
as Charlie Chaplin.
   It's wonderful how civilization has helped us--with its folding Christmas
trees and family matinees!