This question is not so easily answered as you may suppose; for though
all little folk know that a Christmas-box is a gift made at
Christmas-tide, such was not the original meaning of the word.
Christmas-boxes were at first what we now call money-boxes. They were
known as thrift-boxes, and consisted of small wide clay bottles with
imitation stoppers, the upper part covered with a kind of green glaze.
On the side was a slit into which money could be put, and as the money
was collected at Christmas, the boxes in the course of time gave the
name to the present.
[Illustration: DISSATISFIED WITH HIS SUNDAY DINNER.
"See here, Ma, why didn't you buy this Goose when he was alive, so's I
could o' rode him home?"]