"Hi, Santa Claus, You Dearest Darling Man! Here's a Million Kisses to Say Merry Christmas and Do Come Again!

It's a Merry Merry Day Christmas! And while you're celebrating this glorious Yule, you might pause to wonder, what is happening in the homes of our famous celebrities! Like you and me, they're celebrating too, with big glistening ornamented Christmas trees, crackling logs in the hearth, firelight dancing on the walls, and the joy of giving presents and the happiness of receiving them from a good Santa Claus.

Perhaps no where in the world is Christmas more traditional than famous Pickfair stop the hills overlooking Hollywood. Here America's sweetheart Mary Pickford and her sweetheart Buddy Rogers hand the red satin ribboned wreaths of green and red berried holly on the famous gold crested doors. And lights blaze and twinkle all over saying 'Merry Christmas Everyone!'

No one is more generous, more kind and more considerate of others than the most famous little girl in the world with her yellow curls, who, somehow, has never quite grown up in the eyes of movie fans. And her fans are legion, for the name of Mary Pickford is a household word known throughout the world.

'Once upon a long time ago,' Mary recalls - it took her a whole week just to open her gifts. Today she is glad that there are not so many.

'Most of us, although not all of us, do not need a reminder that someone loves us and thinks of us at Christmas time,' Mary says. 'If one can give someone who has nothing a contribution in one's name - what a Merry Christmas it is!

We can still write the loved one - and tell him or her how much we love them!

Christmas to me is for the very young, and the very elderly. For people who have no hope - no family - no anything. A little anonymous gift arriving to a thought-to-be-forgotten one, and it is suddenly Christmas! I have believed this for many years.

Some of us have so much already - what can one give?

Buddy and I trim a big Christmas tree at Pickfair. Sometimes it has been silver or pink, but I personally like the old-fashioned green Christmas tree - to smell the perfume of the pine fir. It reminds me of Canada and when I was a little girl. And my first Christmases when we were very very poor, but very very happy. We had no money, but we had the most previous gift of all - love. There was my grandmother, and my mother, and my brother, and my sister, and we were blessed with unselfish love for each other.

It wasn't what Santa Claus would bring me or what Santa Claus would bring Jack or Lottie, but what he would bring our darling mother who worked so hard to give us food and shelter and to clothe and educate us. We wanted to see Mama's eyes brighten on Christmas morning - more than all of the dollies and fire trucks and tricycles, or candy and nuts and popcorn balls in the whole world!

The big fireplace in the big drawings room at Pickfair is always going and on Christmas eve we gather those closest to us - perhaps not more than a half dozen, since so many are already gone. We have a Christmas supper, and we open a few gifts. But we wait for Christmas morning for the real surprises.

I don't let anyone rip into beautifully wrapped packages. When someone loves you enough to wrap your gift with all of the thought and care of beautiful tinsel paper and satin ribbons and Christmas seals, I believe the wrappings deserve equal care in the unwrapping. We take scissors and we carefully fold the pretty papers away in a big box with all of the ribbons. I have some Scotch in my ancestry - for I save them and store them away high in the big attics of Pickfair. And next year we bring them out admire them and use them!

Christmas dinner at Pickfair is a tradition with a big roast turkey, dressing, fluffed potatoes, sweet potatoes with marshmallows, cranberry sauce, giblet gravy, peas and string beans, mixed salad, celery, olives, and of course, pumpkin pie and mince pie, too.

It has been our custom, Buddy's and mine, for many years to see that the Midnight mission in downtown Los Angeles gets turkey for Christmas.

I like this haven for the destitute. No one has to stand in line to take a bath first or say prayers, or anything before he eats. He can have Christmas dinner when he's hungry and bathe afterwards. It is non-sectarian, and for years whenever we have a party I take the left over sandwiches and cake - everything down to the Mission. The men enjoy it so much. I hope other people will like this idea as well. For what can you do with left-over party sandwiches and cake - that cannot be saved, and can be enjoyed while they are still fresh!

I was luck enough to catch a 165 pound marlin off Oceanside and it too went to the Mission. The joy is seeing the joy of those who receive.

There is turkey on Thanksgiving, Christmas, and new Years Day at Pickfair. And the family days are kept intimate and small, but New Years is for friends who love Pickfair.'

Mary and Buddy keep their gifts to each other a big surprise. I happen to know one Christmas Buddy gave Mary a big new blue Lincoln Continental, and another a white mink jacket. And Mary gave him a membership in his favorite golf club.

'What we give is not important - it is that we are very happy just being together, making other people happy at Pickfair' - says its beautiful mistress, the little girl with the golden curls who became the most famous movie star of them all and who, to many, has never grown up!

Christmas to performers in show business usually means making everyone happy on holidays - without thought of personal self. This year for the first Christmas in his life Sammy Davis, Jr. will be home. Heretofore, Christmas for Sammy was on the road. And good friends like Jerry Lewis and Tony Curtis and the rest, have told me of Sammy coming home oft times after the holidays - his suitcases loaded with gifts. He'd go shopping all over the place for them and especially for their children. And now he has his own family circle.

This is the most exciting and special Christmas in his life - for he now has his wife May Britt and his baby daughter Tracey, who at six months goos and laughs when her famous Daddy dons a Santa Clause suit. Sammy has arranged his terrific schedule to be home for a full week this Christmas. But before New Years, he is off again, when he opens at the Copa in New York December 28th!

Jayne Mansfield is another performer who will enjoy the first Christmas in her new home with her husband Mickey Hargitary and their three children. 'The Christmas before we were married,' Jayne says, 'Mickey and I went with Bob Hope overseas to entertain the boys in Korea. Then we were married and, then our baby, Mickey, Jr. was born three days before Christmas. The next year Zolton was coming, and last year we went with Bob Hope overseas again to entertain the boys. This Christmas is our first at home, and how we love it!'

Jayne's mother and step-father will arrive from Texas, and Mickey says he is putting up a big tree - 'not too large - more family size in the family room adjacent to the drawing room in our home. We sit around the fire and the tree Christmas eve, and then on Christmas morning, we all rush downstairs to the tree!'

'There's Christmas Carols ringing through the halls of our big house,' Jayne laughs, 'and we drink cups of hot chocolate for breakfast while we open our presents. Later in the day we have a big turkey dinner.'

Like Mary, Jayne keeps Christmas small and personal and family.

What's it like to spend Christmas at sea? Fascinating, festive and fun says the Matson Lines, whose four luxury liners will all be away on summer-weather cruises in the peaceful Pacific during the holidays.

On Christmas Day, the Lurline, which sails from San Francisco December 22 (December 23 from Los Angeles) will be mid-way to Acapulco. SS Monterey passengers, leaving San Francisco December 18 (the following day from Los Angeles), will spend their Christmas two days short of Tahiti, while travelers on the SS Mariposa, departing San Francisco November 24 (Los Angeles November 25), will be a day out of Pago Pago, Samoa, enroute to Honolulu.

Passengers and ships' officers will unite as one big family, joining in the hanging of tinsel and holly, caroling around the Christmas tree, participating in talent shows, costume balls, dancing to the ship's orchestra, and attending midnight services.

It's a nautical custom for the deck crew to hoist a Christmas tree up the mast where it remains through New Year's.

Holiday fun begins in earnest Christmas morning when Santa Clause makes his appearance. Played by a jovial passenger or plump crew member, Santa hands out presents (courtesy of the line) to all children aboard. He does the honors for any designated gifts left at the purser's office, too.

Afterwards, there are eggnog parties and similar festivities. And Christmas lunch on these balmy Pacific runs may well be a picnic in bathing suits out on deck by the pool.

A champagne party, hosted by the captain, heralds the festive Christmas dinner which offers a choice of roast suckling pig and other Polynesian specialties, besides the traditional turkey, plum pudding and hard sauce.

On the Lurline, passengers will be entertained by singer Tony Martin, and Matsonia passengers will be entertained by comedian Jan Murray.

On New Year's Eve, the tempo quickens again. Led by the ship's band, passengers march around the promenade deck at the dot of midnight, committing the tree (now stripped of decorations, but bowed with the weight of everyone's resolutions) to Dave Jones' Locker.

Here's hoping your Christmas, wherever you are, be it in your own home, or on the road in show business, or in the air, or at sea - will be the best ever. A Merry Merry Merry Merry Christmas. And to Dear Darling Mr. Santa Claus, Love and Kisses!!!"