DEAR TIME-READER:

This Christmas there will probably be quite a few friends and relations you will want to remember with a gift of TIME:

. . . someone recently out of the armed forces--

. . . a son or daughter at college or just getting started in a business career--

. . . someone overseas--

. . . a busy man or woman you want to remember for some special courtesy to you--doctor, lawyer. homemaker, minister, career woman or valued client.

Every Christmas for 23 years now TIME readers have been sharing their own discovery of TIME with their friends via gift subscriptions. And this year, as usual, a great many readers have already asked us to start gift subscriptions on the way to their friends and relations.

We are grateful for these early gift orders--especially because entering so many subscriptions in so few weeks poses a very real problem for our Chicago subscription fulfillment office. This Christmas, for example, we have had to more than double our subscription staff to handle the rush of orders that will reach us only a little later in the season. And we would like, of course, to give your order expert and unhurried attention.

So, if you decide to send TIME to some of the people on your Christmas list, I hope you will let us have your instructions well in advance of the last-minute rush.

A postage-paid airmail order card showing our special Christmas rates is bound into this issue. Please try to airmail it back to us today.

Thank you--and let me be the first to wish you . . .

A Very Merry Christmas.

CIRCULATION DIRECTOR

P.S. As always, we will announce each gift in your name with a special Christmas greeting card. And this Christmas we will use a special holiday wrapping to deliver the first gift copy to each friend who has never before received TIME from you. The gift announcement card is reproduced in black & white (the card itself is in full color) on page 115 of this issue.

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