Holiday Greetings from PPHS

Here is a bit of holiday history...

According to the internet, this is the first commercially printed Christmas card. This Victorian era-scene, produced in 1843, was emblazoned with the traditional wishes of a “Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you”.

But some 19th Century viewers were far from happy at the imagery which depicted an English family toasting glasses of red wine as a little girl sips from a woman’s cup.

A leading group of puritanicals were quite distressed that in this ‘scandalous’ picture they had children toasting with a glass of wine along with adults and began a campaign to censor and suppress it.  

They kicked up such a fuss over the picture that it took three years before another Christmas card was produced.

 Best Wishes for the Happiest of Holidays from the

Parsonsfield-Porter Historical Society!