Life, 1915-12-02 · page 84 of 100
Life — December 2, 1915 — page 84: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page combines advertisements with satirical "gift card suggestions"—a humorous feature mocking insincere Christmas gift-giving among the upper classes. The satire targets wealthy social circles through letters accompanying gifts. Each reveals the sender's true, selfish motives masked by polite formality: - **To Uncle Fred**: A nephew gives decanters hoping to inherit money, while subtly encouraging drinking despite the uncle's diet. - **To Ada**: Regifting leftover fabric with visible stains, insulting the recipient's taste. - **To Alfred**: A woman buys an expensive smoking set to manipulate her boyfriend into proposing, while disapproving of smoking. - **To Darling Husband**: A wife gives practical appliances framed as labor-saving devices, revealing marital disillusionment. The humor derives from characters' oblivious candor about mercenary motives, social climbing, manipulation, and disappointment—all wrapped in formal courtesy. This reflects early 20th-century anxieties about commercialized holidays and shallow upper-class relationships.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
a best in Candies PARK & TILFORD Chocolates and Bonbons are produced from the very best made into Candies. Our Holiday gift boxes for your Christmas Candies (two of these presented below); are pack- ages exquisitely beautiful. These convey a degree of elegance fashioned as much through “tempt- ingly delicious quality” as by their refinement so evident and so appealing. To lovers of good candies comes full meed of enjoyment when Park & Tilford’s is given. At Agents everywhere and our stores & TILFORD New York Pinehurst NORTH CAROLINA CAROLINA HOTEL ‘ow oren HOLLY INN BERKSHIRE HARVARD Opens January 10 Opens January 15 The large stable of saddle and driving horses will be under the direct supervision of the General Office this year. @ Three 18-hole golf course and new 9-hole practice course, the fairways have been much improved this Summer. @ Model dairy, shoot- ing preserve, trap shooting. @ Excellent new roads in a radius of 50 miles or more. Through Pullman Service from New York via Seatoard Air Line. Only one night from New York, Boston, Cleveland, Pittsburgh and Cincinnati, ‘Send for Mustrated booklet. No consumptives received at Pinehurst. Pinehurst Office, PINEHURST, or Leonard Tufts, BOSTON, MASS. ee Suggestions for Christmas Cards Accompanying Gifts EAR Uncte Frep: Please take this little gift, not because it is Christ- mas, but because I hope you will leave me all your money when you die. Therefore, I remember you on Christmas, the great festival of the world. I know you have no use for this set of decanters because you are on a strict diet. But they will make you feel uncomfortable and long for the forbidden “drops” and possibly they may be a silent temptation to cause you to indulge once again. May your blood pressure mount higher and higher, is the sincere wish of Your nephew, Dick. To Apa: This is something left over from last year. By mistake I got too much cretonne and gilt braid, so there was enough left to make you one. It. has cost me practically nothing and the grease spot on the cretorne will never show because I have sewed the gilt braid over it. It is for anything you like. You have never had anything ar- tistic or pretty in your house anyway, so why should I go from the beaten path? Many good wishes, Your old school friend, Iba, My Dear Mrs. Sneap-Coxe: Mrs. Begg-Newhall gave this to me last year and I put it away especially for you. I knew you would dis- like it as much as I did. I don’t know where Mrs, Begg- Newhall got it from, but it must have caused her a year of misery before she gave it to me. Hang it on your library wall and it will help you wonderfully in self-control. Mrs. AsuTon-Wootsey, To AtrreD: I am in high hopes that you will ask me to marry you, and I have, therefore, bought you an expensive hammered brass smoking set. It will make a great showing among your bachelor friends, and, besides, be of help to us in our small furnishings. I abhor smoking, but am tactful enough not to show it because it is good bait to tead you on with. After we are married, you will have all the rest of your holidays to become disillusioned. Merry, merry Christmas, and if you do not propose before Valentine’s Day, I shall stop struggling. Cora. To My Dartinc Huspanp: This little electric grill and coffee pot is just the thing for you and will make housework less of a drudgery. I know you will be overjoyed when you learn that the chil- dren have all put together and bought you a vacuum cleaner and a cut glass lemonade set. I have called up the furrier to ask him if you bought me my new fur coat, and he says that you have, but it is to be strictly a surprise. As soon as I learned about it, I rushed down and got these trifles. You are too generous, dear. On my birth- day you must positively promise to give me nothing more, save the muff to match, Your loving wife, Paituis. To Acnes: Seeing that we are engaged, I have gone in debt still further for this pearl pendant. After we are married, imitations will suffice unless you pay for them. I am sure you will be a good little bride and settle my debts at once so that our honeymoon may be calm and uninter- Comicbooks.com