No gift is more appreciated on Christmas than a box of attractive home-made candies. Its crisp ribbon bow and gay sprig of holly fairly shout out the glad holiday tidings and bring good cheer and good will to all. Christmas without its sweets would hardly be Christmas to most of us, for have they not played the most important part in our Christmas joys since the first time we hung up our stockings for Santa Claus and waited for fear he might pass us by?

Winter is coming, the time when mothers of small folks from three to six are almost reduced to nervous wrecks trying to keep them amuseu and out of mischief. In the summer months the problem is not so great, for the children can be out of doors from sun up to sun down with the whole storehouse of nature to explore and learn from. Then they are happy the whole day. But on cold, blustery, long winter days what to do to rid them of their excess energy without wrecking the home is a real problem.

Christmas is coming. Many of us are thinking over carefully, even anxiously, what will make the best gifts for the children. Candy and sweets too often result in regrets and castor oil; toys - yes. they are exciting for a time, but too many mean distraction and tend to develop an inability to concentrate for any length of time. Wrecks and breakage come quickly. Then why not books, at least one or two, in place of half the candy and half the toys?

In great grandmother's day, the Christmas dinner took days and days of work, but little planning. There was, perhaps, a family of fourteen, and twice as many guests. The food problem was solved by cooking every available vegetable, cake, pie, pudding and fowl. Quantity was the chief goal. But when families decreased from fourteen to four, there came new difficulties. Now we must plan well-balanced meals. We no longer have five kinds of cake and four kinds of pie for one meal. For that reason our pie or cake must be more carefully planned, so as to fit in with the rest of the menu.

I had been sitting at my desk for some time, reading the previous articles on the responsibility for the child and writing down some ideas that occurred to me, when my seven-year-old boy came into the room.