Christmas shopping

Lights and decorations are going up everywhere, and it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas around here. But of course the “Christmas” commercials have been with us for weeks. When I was younger, it was considered quite gauche, tacky, simply not done, for merchants to advertise Christmas until AFTER Thanksgiving. Now they hardly even wait for Halloween!

Christmas shopping is in full swing, but I’ve always enjoyed waiting until the week or so before Christmas to do mine. Of course, I now do much of my shopping online, and that must be done early enough to allow for shipping. But actually going to stores ~ I think that’s much more fun in mid-December, when it actually feels like Christmas.

As for "Black Friday"... For me, the day after Thanksgiving is for relaxing with family, watching movies, eating turkey sandwiches and finishing off those pies. My sisters-in-law go with each other and their daughters to the mall at 5:00 am, and have a big time, but you couldn’t pay me to go shopping that day!

I found myself telling my husband the other day how much I love Christmas, and that I would love it just as much without any shopping or presents at all. (Yes, I know that’s a dangerous thing to say to one’s husband ~ but he would never consider not giving gifts!)

Of course I will give and receive gifts ~ they are a way to express love and appreciation and friendship, a way to share joy and generosity, and they are so much fun to wrap (and open).

But really if you just gave me beautiful Christmas music and a holly wreath and some Christmas cookies and my mother’s nativity crèche set up on the piano, I would be joyful and content.

Oh yes, and the Christmas tree.

Victorian Floral Christmas Cards

The custom of sending Christmas cards began in Victorian London in about 1840, and in 1875 Boston lithographer Louis Prang began publishing Christmas cards in America. The earliest cards usually featured colorful flower blossoms or pictures of birds, children or angels.

We couldn't find out much more about floral cards, except that they were part of the Victorians' (and Victorian-era Americans') love for flowers, and that the early, more expensive cards were probably sent by affluent folks.


It was inexpensive holiday penny postcards, somtimes imported from Germany, that were sent by most Americans until WWI.

We think these floral cards are lovely and quaint -- they certainly reflect the "shabby" romantic spirit that so many of our customers like!


While cards featuring caroling children, nativity scenes, holly wreaths, and of course dear old Santa Claus fit our traditional idea of Christmas, these old flower cards are sweet for something different.

You'll find them (and hundreds more holiday images) in our Holidays & Occasions 3CD set -- and with holiday greetings removed in our Victorian Flowers collection, to use as flower pictures in your scrapbooking, card making and art.

Did you know......?

You can buy Lunagirl shirts, sweatshirts, other clothing, tote bags, baby items, mugs, journals and more by visiting our Lunagirl Shop. Featuring a variety of Victorian Edwardian and vintage images: Halloween and Christmas pictures, antique advertising labels, women, men, fairies and angels, flowers, animals and birds, even beautiful paintings by Van Gogh, Bouguereau and Waterhouse.

Check us out (get a jump on your holiday gift shopping!)

The Origins of Halloween Customs

Halloween is a familiar holiday to Americans. Children disguised as ghosts and goblins (and superheroes and princesses) roam the streets trick-or-treating; teenagers play pranks and try to frighten themselves with trips to the graveyard and scary movies; and generally everyone has a good time drinking cider (or something harder), bobbing for apples, wearing costumes, and waiting for "the witching hour."

But few people know of the origins of Halloween and its wonderful mood of magic and fright.

CLICK HERE to find out more! in our exclusive feature article:
"BETWEEN THE WORLDS: The Origins of Halloween & Its Customs."
Illustrated with wonderful antique Victorian vintage greeting cards!

Featured Collage Sheet: The Witching Hour

We offer a variety of Vintage Halloween collage sheets (plus our Holidays CD set!) ~ here's one with something just a little different, great for any time of year if you want some"witchy" ladies for your projects. "The Witching Hour" features some gorgeous Pre-Raphaelite paintings and fairy tale illustrations, plus altered Victorian postcards. Witches at their cauldrons, a sorceress or two, an ice queen, a lady gazing into her crystal ball, and a couple of little girl witches...

FULL MOON TONIGHT!

Banned Books Week

We're in the midst of banned books week, sponsored each year by the American Library Association. Read a "banned" book this week! You can choose from many authors -- including Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, DH Lawrence, James Joyce, Fitzgerald, Steinbeck, Salinger, Shaw, Twain, Marquez, Faulkner, Hemingway, James Joyce, Jack London, Zora Neale Hurston, Vonnegut, Lewis Carroll, Roald Dahl, Anne Rice, Anne Frank, Thomas Paine, Stephen King, Shakespeare -- the list goes on and on. Most religious texts have been banned somewhere by somebody. Even dictionaries have been banned for containing "dirty" words!

Here are a few well-known titles that have been often banned or "challenged" (in no particular order): To Kill a Mockingbird, Gone With the Wind, Lady Chatterley's Lover, The Lord of the Rings, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Alice in Wonderland, Little Red Riding Hood, The Color Purple, The Bridge to Terabithia, The Grapes of Wrath, Of Mice and Men, The Great Gatsby, Lolita, The Call of the Wild, As I Lay Dying, Their Eyes Were Watching God, The Invisible Man, Native Son, Slaughterhouse Five, Heart of Darkness, All Quiet on the Western Front, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, All the King's Men, The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, In Cold Blood, Catcher in the Rye, Catch-22, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, 1984, Heart of Darkness, Naked Lunch, Tropic of Cancer, Women in Love, The Decameron (written in the 14th century), Lysistrata (written in ancient Greece), Portnoy's Complaint, Rabbit Run, Sylvester and the Magic Pebble, James and the Giant Peach, In the Night Kitchen, A Wrinkle in Time, The Handmaid's Tale, Henry and June, Ulysses, The Satanic Verses, One Hundred Years of Solitude, Song of Solomon, Beloved, The Bluest Eye, Howl by Allen Ginsberg, Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451. If you've never read Fahrenheit 451, it's about burning books. The author, Ray Bradbury, said his novel wasn't about censorship but rather about how television destroys interest in literature, which leads to a perception of knowledge as factoids without context or critical thought. So get off the internet and go read a book!

Moonday Free Images: The First Day of Autumn

Some beautiful illustrations appropriate for the first day of autumn.

Now for something completely different

Alright, for those of you who don't share my fascination with mythology and religion...

here is something on a much lighter note. Just for fun. I can't tell if this cat is having fun or not...

The Birthday of Mary

In honor of the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary...

a beautiful holy card from our Victorian Religious Ephemera collection.

In the apocryphal Gospel of James from the 2nd Century AD, the names of Mary's parents are Joachim and Anna. St. Anne is traditionally honored as the mother of Mary (and the grandmother of Jesus). The Feast Day of Mary's birth (exactly nine months after the Immaculate Conception on December 8) probably began in 5th Century Jerusalem and has been widely celebrated since at least the 8th Century. There is also an apocryphal Gospel of the Nativity of Mary, translated from the Hebrew by St. Jerome in the 4th Century, in which an angel visits Anne to tell her of the birth of a daughter, Mary.

Ann (Anna) is the oldest name still used in the west, already an ancient name when used by the Hebrews. It is usually translated as "grace," but the original meaning is something difficult to translate, closer to "goddess." I believe I once read that it is the oldest name ever found for divinity. How appropriate that in Christianity this is the name is given to the grandmother of God.

September 6: The Feast of Artemis

Artemis is known as the Greek goddess of the hunt and the new moon, daughter of Leto and sister of Apollo. She is most likely a very ancient Anatolian goddess, one of the ancient goddesses of the near east much older than the Greek civilization.

She was a virgin goddess ~ which meant she was unmarried, free, untamed, wild ~ whole unto herself. One of her titles was 'many-breasted' because she nurtured animals and humans, and she was the protector of women in childbirth. Although she is usually associated with the new crescent moon, in her more ancient guise she was not only Maiden but also Mother and Crone, associated with all phases of the moon.

Things sacred to Artemis include: animals, especially bears, wolves, deer, dogs, birds and all wild animals; young girls and unmarried women; silver, pearl and moonstone; forests, woodland sanctuaries; artemisia, moneyplant, cypress, cedar, laurel; unplowed fields, blank pages, potential and possibility