Christmas is coming”, laments Ellen Stuart, “and I have got to think up presents for everybody . . . Dear me, it’s so tedious!”
Her aunt sympathises and recalls her youth, a time before gift-giving became excessive. “Presents did not fly about in those days as they do now.”
These familiar sentiments are older than we might guess. Ellen is a character in Christmas; or, The Good Fairy, a short story written by Harriet Beecher Stowe in 1850.
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