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Show Lintsing, Shantung China. Dear home friends, Chinese New Years Day. Never in the long months since I wrote you last have you been long out of mind; never would I have been able to forget you for any length of time if I had wanted to, for all during this time we have been receiving constant reminders of your love and interest in our work. It was not very Ions after our school letter went out last year before your lovely boxes of things for general use and for Christmas began to come to us, and they have been corning ever since. It hfs been a great joy to us to receive them and we knowt hat it has been a joy to you to prepare them. Each package showed that love had gone into the packing of it, and it is most gratefully that we received and used them. How 1 did wish that each of you could receive one of the painstakingly written invitations with its silver star "in the East" to our Christmas party at the day school in the chapel. Nothing would have added to my cup of joy that was filled to overflowing as I watched the radiant faces of the children in their preparations and at the time as much as having all of you who had madw it possible there. Way back in my mind had been the tlmt that a tree was what I would like the children to have this year, and then came a five dollar gold draft from Nebraska to be used for Christmas! Last summer the place had been enlarged by taking down a wall and letting two rooms into one, so this made just the place for a party (and a splendid day school too !). When the chi'dren were asked if they would like to entertain the first and second grades of the day school and boarding school in the compound, you may be sure there was not one dissenting vote-what fun they did have getting ready! Invitations, decorations, and presents furnished an incentive for careful writing and an interest in handwork for a whole month without their realizing that it was one of the reasons for it all! When they came up here to Sunday School, it was such bard work not to tell of the fun that was in store for the others, but somehow they managed it, so it was a most impressive occasion when Precious Truth and New Virtue" (a little boy whom I have since discovered to be the son of our new cook) walked in one day just at the close and the distributed their bits of paper. Then the North End, as we in the compound are designated by those outside, caught the air of bustle. A few days betor Miss Long had had a box of trimmings come from fiieuds in Olivet and those she gave to us, so that with a number of home-made decorations we ieit very rich when, on the morning of the party, we began the fun of really getting ready. Then was when the faces began to glow with a very special light, and everyone got under everyone's else feet, but somehow the one hammer got passed around with great speed, and there was almost always a little hand offering tacks when they were wanted so that soon chains, bells, lanterns, and all the other things they had made had been put up somewhere and the tree was ready for the presents. Such an air of expectancy as fell over each eager little tot, and such disappointment when they were told that they might go home then and be ready to come back when they heard the two o'clock bTl at the church ring; even the knowledge that they would all be back long before then and could look through the windows did not help much! But they went. For each little girl a doll with a China head, a number of which 1 saw some days later all put to bed in one of the large dormitories in true American style, and for each little boy a very gay rubber ball, and then lots of tiny gifts for any 1 ttle brothers or sisters who might manage to get brot along; such were the gifts which Miss Chin (Gin) and I put on the tree and a table, all things which you had sent. Right here I must add that thev felt it was no place for tiny chidren who would not live up to the solemness of the occasion," so that all the extra presents had to be taken home to the brothers and sisters! You would have hardly have recognized what followed as a party. When the guests arrived, all the little hosts and hostesses where lined up on one side of the room, and there according to Chinese custom they stayed while the others filed silently in; bows were exchanged and all sat down. Everyone looked with ever-widening eves at the tree and the room, and when Miss Chin felt enough time had been comsurned by that, she a-ked the guests if they had a song to sing. I gasped, but it seemed that that was what was expected for thev were ail preparte 1 to do their part as well as to listen to the others afterward. They did liven after that an 1 the stunts caused as much merriment as they would have in America Santa was there, one of the girls (no boy being brave enough) taking the part, all dressed in red wilh all the cotton they could get to make her look like the foreign pictures. She brot the tiniest boy in school along as a plaything to amuse the the children. He could do 'most anything if wound up properly! Of course no party is complete without refreshment, and knowing the parents would be grateful to have the ever-present cavities filled, we saw to it that the peanuts and pears (China's apple) were "not a few". After much comparing of gifts, the party was over, bat |