Atlas with wreaths at Rockefeller Center

"It is reputed that the first Christmas card, as we now think of it, was dispatched

in 1845 by W.C. Dobson, one of Queen Victoria's favorite painters. He sent

lithograph copies to his friends. The following year John Calcott Horsley,

Royal Academician, was asked to design a card for Sir Henry Cole. It seemed

that Sir Henry, finding himself very busy, and not able to write a vast quantity

of Christmas letters to his friends, asked Horsley to produce a card which he might

send out in lieu of correspondence...I am indebted to Clementine Paddleford in

The American Home, December, 1935, for some interesting facts about this card,

and the reader who would like to know more about the history of

Christmas cards, would do well to refer to this article.

In Horsley's card we see a merry family, three generations, leaning back comfortably,

kindly disposed toward the fruit of the vine, and celebrating their annual deed of

kindness to the poor. There was "brimming cheer" for everyone, from Grandma

to Little Nell. Mr. Horsley's drawing was severely criticized by the zealous friends

of temperance, declaring the design was an out-and-out promoter of drunkenness.

There was such an unwarranted to do over the point that by the time Christmas,

1847 rolled around a number of people who might never have known about

the Cole card were getting out one of their own. "

 -- from 1001 Christmas Facts and Fancies by Alfred Carl Hottes

'In numbers, and but these few,

I sing thy birth, O Jesu,

Thou pretty baby, born here,

With superabundant scorn here,

Who for thy princely port here,

Hadst for thy place

Of birth, a base

Out-stable for thy court here.

Instead of neat enclosures

Of interwoven osiers,

Instead of fragrant posies

Of daffodils and roses,

Thy cradle, kingly stranger,

As gospel tells,

Was nothing else

But here a homely manger.

But we with silks, not crewels,

With sundry precious jewels,

And lily-work will dress thee;

And, as we dispossess thee

Of clouts, we'll make a chamber,

Sweet babe, for thee,

Of ivory,

And plastered round with amber.'

from Herrick's Ode, by Robert Herrick, 1591-1674

The Oxford Book of Carols, 1928

Days 'til Christmas