The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers, Digital Edition > My Day
My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt

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NEW YORK, N. Y., Thursday—It seemed to me that I visited a great many "sales" yesterday, and each one had attractive things. I find this kind of Christmas buying doubly nice, because I give myself an added pleasure in choosing something I hope a friend will enjoy and, at the same time, help some charity.

First, I visited the Czechoslovakian shop, and fell in love with their dolls on horseback. The horses are really delightful. They urged me to come to their work rooms where the women make these horses. I was told they looked even more attractive in their semi-finished state!

In response to a rather stern letter, I finally screwed up my courage to find The Southern Highlanders at 610 Fifth Avenue. For some reason I had made up my mind that I would wander through miles of corridors and had the feeling that it would take me a long while to find them. Instead, I discovered that when I walked in from the street, I was surrounded by familiar pieces of handcraft work from all the best centers in the South and the mountain regions.

I went also to the Greenwich House Pottery shop and there I fell a victim to one of their "creches." The little glazed figures in a wooden shelter should be a permanent ornament under anyone's Christmas tree. Perhaps they may serve as an everlasting reminder that this Christmas season is not just a matter of gifts, but has something to do with the renewal of the spirit of love in the world.

I rather hope that, instead of my presenting this to somebody else, the family will agree to present it to me for a perpetual decoration under our own Christmas tree. Nothing like choosing one's own Christmas present!

I received a letter yesterday from Commander Stauffer of the Philadelphia County Council of the American Legion, reminding me that Sunday, December 15th, will mark the one hundred and forty-ninth anniversary of the Ratification of the Bill of Rights in our Constitution, and that at this particular time, every one of us should reread those ten articles and ponder on what they mean.

They are perhaps the epitome of the difference between our own philosophy and the totalitarian one. Commander Stauffer makes the suggestion that we should ask Congress to make the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary next year, a national holiday. Perhaps enough people will feel that this is important and make the suggestion to their own Congressman.

I am going this morning to the sale for the blind and to do one or two other errands, before attending the opera this afternoon.

E.R.

(Copyright, 1940, by United Feature Syndicate, Inc.)


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About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, December 13, 1940

Roosevelt, Eleanor, 1884-1962
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Digital edition created by The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project The George Washington University 312 Academic Building 2100 Foxhall Road, NW Washington, DC 20007

  • Brick, Christopher (Editor)
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Digital edition published 2008, 2017 by
The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project

Available under licence from the Estate of Anna Eleanor Roosevelt.

Published with permission from the Estate of Anna Eleanor Roosevelt.

MEP edition publlished on June 30, 2008.

TEI-P5 edition published on April 28, 2017.

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Transcription created from a photocopy of a UFS wire copy of a My Day column instance archived at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library.
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