The Captain, December 1903
Excerpt from “The Old Fag” editorial:
 

Mr. Wodehouse . . . is as close as an author can be—down the street at the Globe office—and the writer of that jolly serial, The Gold Bat, pops in with the following:

My Ideal Christmas.

I don’t think I can improve on Dickens. The Christmas in Pickwick has always struck me as the sort of Christmas I should most like to spend, bar falling into the pond, which I could dispense with. My ideal Christmas would be passed solely with people I know intimately; people who could be relied on to ask me neither to play round games nor to sing. Round games poison any day of festivity. There is one in particular, called “Are you there, Moriarty?”—but the subject is painful. Also there must be snow (not too much) and a sharp frost. Finally, I should prefer to spend Christmas in the country. Old manor house—wassail—flickering fire-light—ghost stories, and that sort of thing. That’s me.