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Show I Pagans Also Sent New Year's Cards Here in America the popular and evergrowing custom of exchanging New Year's greeting cards Is of fairly recent origin, but actually the New Year's card antedates the more familiar Christmas card by several hundred years. With Christmas our greatest national na-tional holiday, most of us are inclined in-clined to think of New Year's as a sort of happy afterthought. The fact is, it is one of the oldest of festivals, dating back to pagan times. In certain cer-tain countries of Europe where Christmas is observed as a purely religious festival, New Year's takes the form of a real feast day and Its celebration is marked by rejoicing and the exchange of gifts and greetings. greet-ings. The earliest known New Year's "greetings" were medals marked with good wishes which date back to the reign of the Roman Emperor "iTH I'iI'Iii i ,,iiwnm iiiiiiiuxiuii SimOl s A Xv aiMo NwteM s cfc- ftl ' x Tvt .t! " a-i eirx 1 8i iA So 1 tioii Jt T 1 Commodus (180-192). And while New Year's cards long have been a tradition in China, where the technique tech-nique of printing was invented, the first European New Year's card we have record of is of German origin, ori-gin, dating back to the 1450s. It depicts the Christ Child and a chest overflowing with good wishes. Another An-other card of the same period has treasure ship as its central design. Our present-day New Year's cards have an impressive history behind them. With their festive confetti-colors confetti-colors and "Baby New Year," "Father "Fa-ther Time," bells and balloons, they serve as messages of the good will we feel toward our friends and neighbors, and of our hope for "A Prosperous and Happy New Year!" |