The following text appeared in the December 1949 issue of Arizona Highways. On behalf of the magazine's staff, we wish you and yours a happy holiday.

Your neighbors or the choir from the little church down the street will gather before your house and sing the ancient songs of Yule on Christmas Eve. The Christmas tree in your house will send its merry, twinkling light of good cheer through the unshuttered windows, sharing with the stars in a Christmas sky the happenstance of guiding the way of a neighbor or a stranger passing by. There will be gifts around the Christmas tree, large and small it matters not. It isn't what you give but how you give it, it isn't what you receive but how you receive it that bespeaks the spirit of the Holy Season.

If your dear ones are far away, they will be with you this day, your thoughts and their thoughts, your love and their love, your memories and their memories encompassing the intervening miles. If your loved ones are with you they will be closer than ever, because family affection and trust has always been the inspiration of this day since the first Christmas long ago when a Child cried in a Manger and patient beasts of burden munched the dry straw.

Among you and yours there will be charity for the less fortunate, comfort for the lonely, solace for those who sorrow, sympathy for the ill, compassion for the proud and selfish. Among you and yours there will be reverent gratitude and humility for all that has been given to make this day for you richer and happier and more complete.

In short, we wish you just an old-fashioned Christmas.

— Raymond Carlson, Editor