Every Day Life on a Ceylon Cocoa Estate by Mary E. Steuart

DECEMBER 28th. - Christmas has come, and gone. Not the snowy, blustering Christmas of northern latitudes, but a showery misty imitation! which is the best substitute Ceylon in the N.E. monsoon can provide. Christmas Day this year, being on a Sunday, I decided to have my little party on Christmas Eve. We were all up betimes decorating the bungalow; the arched doorways and windows were outlined with fronds (some 3.5 feet long) of the giant polipody fern, which grows abundantly in the gullies on the Estate; huge palm branches were fixed on the bare colour washed walls of the dining-room, whilst here and there bunches of red croton gave the suggestion of scarlet holly; the drawing-room decorations consisted entirely of sprays of bamboo, and bouquets of roses. The verandah, as usual, was full of pot plants, giant yams, caladiums, lilies, maidenhair ferns of many varieties, and large pots of single pink balsam; so that the general effect of the bungalow was a perfect bower of foliage and flowers. I must not forget to mention a curious native adornment which our Appu hung up in the archway between the two sitting-rooms. It consisted of a round stem (part of a banana tree) about 2.5 feet long, depending from this and fastened into it at each end were nine half hoops made of the centre of young banana leaves, with trefoils cut out and left at regular intervals - the whole formed a graceful kind of lantern, in which during the evening a lighted candle burned.

The decorations being complete, and mid-day breakfast over, the whole household retired to their respective quarters for a much needed siesta. At three o'clock the first of our guests arrived, preceded as usual by a box coolie carrying the inevitable tin box containing his master's changes of raiment.