I’ve been living in Christmas Past today instead of Christmas Present, thanks to my collection of old magazines from the beginning of last century. I’ve been reading the December issues of Frank Leslie’s Popular Monthly, Scribner’s Magazine Illustrated, The Cosmopolitan, and other popular publications of the day in search of Christmas spirit.

My first find, however, is rather horrifying. The December 1900 issue of Frank Leslie’s Popular Monthly printed a poem that is now so dated in its outlook that half the time I’m recoiling from it in horror and the rest of the time I’m just grateful that we’ve progressed somewhat as a society in the century since.

Here, from the pen of Frank L. Stanton, who was named Poet Laureate of Georgia in 1925, is the poem “Christmas Gif!” If I’ve figured out the LiveJournal cut tool properly, those of you who’d rather not travel in time to such an ignorant past can skip the experience and wait for me to unearth something a bit more enlightened.