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[[preprinted]] 44 [[/preprinted]] sheet of stamps -- and we began working on them. In the evening, a bunch of young people, dressed in old fashioned monks costumes, came by & sang Xmas carols. They carried old fashioned lighted lamps, and the whole effect was most pleasing. The first real feeling of Christmas I've had. [[underline]] Tuesday, December 24, 1935 [[/underline]] Dick went to see Jemmat this morning and came home with a Christmas present of 5,000 unsorted stamps. We spent most of the afternoon "playing" with them. [[underlined]] Wednesday, December 25, 1935 [[/underline]] Christmas Day. Dick gave me another gift of 6 coffee spoons which I had admired. They are nickel plate, with a little blue nob at the top of the handle. We had a fairly good Christmas dinner consisting of ham, and turkey, mostly the former. The "Christmas pudding" was excellent. Most of the day was spent doing stamps. It is a lot of fun, but I do get a little tired now and then. [[end page]] [[start page]] [[preprinted]] 45 [[/preprinted]] It wasnt at all like last Christmas, but very much nicer in some ways. This time Dick could be with me. If I could have my family and Dick all together at Christmas, the day couldn't be nicer. Let us hope we wont have to wait too long for that! [[underline]] December 26, 1935 [[/underline]] Last year at this time I had left my happy home in Berkeley. This year I spend it in Trinidad and help celebrate [[the following is a type-written page pasted on the diary page and covering a portion of the handwriting]] Boxing-Day is a system of Christmas-boxes, or the bestowing of certain expected gratuities at the christmas season. Journeymen, apprentices of trades-people were wont to levy regular contributions from their masters' customers, who, in addition, were mulcted by the trades-people in the form of augmented charges in the bills, to recompence the latter for gratuities expected from them by the customers' servants. This most objectionable practice is almost extinct, but not entirely. Christmas-boxes are still regularly expected by the postman, the lamplighter, the dustman, and generally all those functionaries who render services to the public at large, without receiving payment therefor from any particular individual. There is also a very general custom at the Christmas season of the masters presenting their clerks, apprentices, and other "employes" with little gifts, either in money or kind. St. Stephen's Day, the 26th of December, being the customary day on which those guerdons known as Christmas-boxes are solicited and collected, is known as Boxing-Day. [[/pasted in page]]