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Showing posts with the label 1950s

Halloween Fun and History

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1910s Transcendental Graphics/Getty Images Halloween is fast approaching. When did our traditions of Halloween happen?  Over 2,000 years ago Halloween started in the United Kingdom, Ireland, and northwestern France from an ancient pagan festival celebrated by Celtic people. It marked the beginning of the winter season.  The Christain church started the All Saint's Day which was called All Hallows' Eve later warping into the word Halloween. Trick or Treating was an adult event. People would leave food out on a table as a treat for spirits. In some areas of the United Kingdom and Ireland, people went mumming (parading in masks).  They would go door to door asking for food and drink in return for a performance or song. On November 5, Guy Fawkes Day, people dressed in costume and asking for food or money. The Celts wore animal skin costumes to hide in plain sight in hopes of protecting themselves from the potential evil spirits that may appear during Samhain. If they loo

Christmas Cards through the Decades

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First Christmas Card Have you ever wondered when Christmas Cards started?  It all started when Sir Cole and J.C. Horsely got together and sketched out a  triptych showing a family at a table celebrating the holiday flanked by images of people helping the poor.  At the top of each was the salutation, "To______" allowing Cole to personalize his response which included the generic greeting "A Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year To You." The first Christmas card originated in the United States in 1875 from Louis Prang, a Prussian immigrant who had a print shop near Boston. The modern Christmas card industry, according to Smithsonian Magazine, began in 1915, when a Kansas City-based fledgling postcard printing company started by Joyce Hall, later to be joined by his brothers Rollie and William, published its first-holiday card. During late 1910s J.C Hall put "hallmark" used by goldsmiths as a marking quality. In 1928, the company began marketing its bra