A Happy Christmas..

.. to my readers, fellow bloggers, and Old School Wargame acquaintances... oh, and anyone else I have forgot!

May the Christmas holiday period be restful & relaxing, and the big guy in the red suit leave everything you could want under the tree..

For your reading pleasure the picture this year is the first ever commercially made Christmas card... as those of you who visit here are aware, I have an almost insatiable appetite for trivia and I happened to find this while I was spending a half hour googling the other lunchtime.

It is attributed to a gentlemen called Henry Cole (he was later knighted) who came up with the idea in 1843 (he also designed the first postage stamp apparently!).

The story goes that he had so many friends, relatives and colleagues that he wished to send greetings to at Christmas that handwriting them was impossible; and the usual practice was to have individually painted cards. Accordingly he got a local artist to paint him the picture you see, and took it to a printer to have it printed so that all he had to do was sign it....... and the rest is history...

PS. Nothing changes - the card showed a child enjoying a sip of wine, and Cole was accused of “fostering the moral corruption of children.”!