Tell It to Santa Claus

MERRY CHRISTMAS, MR. BAXTER (181 pp.)--Edward Streefer--Harper ($3).

Spending beyond their income on gifts

for Christmas --Swing doors and crowded lifts and

draperied jungles--What shall we buy for our husbands and sons Different from last year?

Thus British Poet Louis MacNeice in a nervously cynical poem, Christmas Shopping. Cynicism has never been the special gift of Humorist Edward (Dere Mablc, Father of the Bride) Streeter, but the problem of his latest hero is pretty much the one posed by the poet. It is, in fact, the problem of all bill-paying males, and as the recently retired vice president oi the Bank of New York, Author Streeter doesn't make the fatal mistake of saying: "Aw, shucks, it's only money, and Christmas comes just once a year." His Mr. Baxter, the head of a prosperous textile business in New York, is determined to cut down on Christmas presents and Christmas cards. What is more, he wants to do his Christmas shopping early, before mobs of aggressive females turn an already distasteful chore into agony.

As any Streeter fan can guess, these brave resolutions are never realized. In the first place, there is Mrs. Baxter. Economy, of course. All for it. But by the time the Christmas-card list is pared down and revised, many a name failing to evoke even the face of its owner, it is considerably longer than last year's. Somehow Mrs. Baxter also manages to convey the intelligence that her fur coat is looking pretty ratty, and, through some strange domestic alchemy that Author Streeter understands so well, she winds up with a mink stole that she never dreamed of getting and her husband never intended to buy. In the end, of course, poor Baxter is caught in the department-store mob, a soft mark for salesgirls who are prettier than they should be; the children and grandchildren get as much loot as ever, while he gets none of his secret wishes (an airplane, among other things); and when it is all over, he is as exhausted and low in pocket as his millions of fellow sufferers.

Author Streeter, sardonic but kindly, conveys the idea that all this madness is cruelty to husbands, without, however, quite joining the Down with Christmas party. Every adult male who reads the book is bound to identify himself, ruefully and completely, with Mr. Baxter. Besides being a funny and true bit of entertainment, the book will also make an excellent little 'extra Christmas gift for wives.

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