American Christmas is the egg-nogg and free
lunch, distributed at all the hotels and cafes. A week at least
before the 25th fanciful signs are suspended over the fountains of the
bars (the hotel-keepers are quite classic in their ideas) announcing
superb lunch and egg-noggs on Christmas Day. This invitation is sure
to meet with a large response from the amateur epicures about town,
who, ever on the _qui vive_ for a banquet gratis, flock to the festive
standard, since it has never been found a difficult matter to give
things away, from the time old Heliogabalus gastronomed in Phoenicia
up to the present hour. A splendid hall in one of the principal
hotels, at this moment, occurs to us. A table, the length of the
apartment, is spread and furnished with twenty made dishes peculiar to
the Christmas _cuisine_. There are _chorodens_ and _fricassees_,
_ragouts_ and _calipee_, of rapturous delicacy. Each dish is labelled,
and attended by a black servant, who serves its contents on very small
white gilt-edged plates. At the head of the table a vast bowl,
ornamented with indescribable Chinese figures, contains the
egg-nogg--a palatable compound of milk, eggs, brandy, and spices,
nankeenish in colour, with froth enough on its surface to generate any
number of Venuses, if the old Peloponnesian anecdote is worth
remembering at all. Over the egg-nogg mine host usually officiates,
all smiles and benignity, pouring the rich draught with miraculous
dexterity into cut-glass goblets, and passing it to the surrounding
guests with profuse hand. On this occasion the long range of fancy
drinks are forgotten. Sherry-cobblers, mint-juleps, gin-slings, and
punches, are set aside in order that the sway of the Christmas draught
may be supreme. Free lunches are extremely common in the United
States, what are called "eleven o'clock snacks" especially; but the
accompaniment of egg-nogg belongs unequivocally to the death of the
year.

The presentation of "boxes" and souvenirs is the same in America as in
England, the token of remembrance having an inseparable alliance with
the same period. Everybody expects to give and receive. A month before
the event the fancy stores are crowded all day long with old and young
in search of suitable _souvenirs_, and every object is purchased, from
costliest gems to the tawdriest _babiole_ that may get into the
market. If the weather should be fine, the principal streets are
thronged with ladies shopping in sleighs;