WHAT IS A CHRISTMAS-BOX?
Reading edition
This question is not so easily answered as you may suppose; for though all little folk know that a Christmas-box is a gift made at Christmas-tide, such was not the original meaning of the word. Christmas-boxes were at first what we now call money-boxes. They were known as thrift-boxes, and consisted of small wide clay bottles with imitation stoppers, the upper part covered with a kind of green glaze. On the side was a slit into which money could be put, and as the money was collected at Christmas, the boxes in the course of time gave the name to the present.
DISSATISFIED WITH HIS SUNDAY DINNER. "See here, Ma, why didn't you buy this Goose when he was alive, so's I could o' rode him home?"
