Christmas list

What would the children like, we ask, a question that's still as perplexing today as it was to so many yesterday, and the day before, and more and more. Two centuries or so ago, a Christmas list of toys was drawn:

An Aviary, A Bird, a cuckoo, A Parrot that turns, A Grocery Shop, A Tea Chest, A Book, A Box, A Tunbridge Tea Set, 3 Tunbridge Toys, A Neatly Dressed Wax Baby Doll, A Prussian Dragoon - the gifts that were given later on to three-year-old Patsy and five-year-old John - the stepchildren of George Washington.