We're Still Busy!

We're getting invitations to do things with The American Slave Coast -- one came in just today for Porter Books in Boston, for Feb. 29th (Black History Month).  Thank goodness Boston isn't buried in snow this winter. And another arrived yesterday for Revolution! a new bookstore in Harlem.  We've been invited to address a meeting of NYC's public employees' union too, among other things.

The first Christmas card,  created by Henry Cole, in Victorian London 1843.

I have made my Christmas letter, which this year is a run-down of the history of the Christmas card, which begins in Victorian England in 1843. I can't stop being a historian, evidently, even in the holidays.   Before that the tradition was to write Christmas letters (see, this isn't a contemporary phenomenon at all). The fellow who came up with the concept of the Christmas card was a fellow with too many friends: he simply couldn't write a letter to them all.

There are many illos in my Christmas letter of Christmas cards in Victorian England and the U.S., and more modern ones.  It's 6 pages long but printed on both sides, so it's only three sheets of paper. I enjoyed doing this so much that I'm even enjoying addressing the envelopes.  I even enjoyed going out to find Christmas cards into which to put the Christmas letter, even though it's 62 degrees and dark dark dark with pouring rain.