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In the Christian church, January 6 is commemorated as the feast of Epiphany, the day on which the three wise men, or three kings, arrived at the stable in Bethlehem to visit the newborn baby Jesus. In 1756, during the reign of King George II, The Gentleman’s Magazine reported that: ‘His Majesty, attended by the principal officers at Court ... went to the Chapel Royal at St James’ and offered gold, myrrh and frankincense.’ By the 19th century, however, these religious celebrations on January 6 had become almost forgotten, outside of the church itself. By the time of Charles Dickens’ birth (1812), the celebration of Twelfth Night in Britain was much more closely associated with parties and drinking, than with

The year 1843, was to mark a turning point in how the British – and eventually much of the wider world – celebrated Christmas. Not only was it the year in which Charles Dickens’ novella, A Christmas Carol, was published; it was also the year in which the first commercial Christmas card was created. Henry Cole, a busy London civil servant, commissioned the artist John Callcott Horsley to design a card for him, which he sent to family, friends, and business associates in place of the expected Christmas letters. His extra cards were sold commercially. It is perhaps no coincidence that these two events took place in the same year, as both men were unwittingly capturing what was an as-yet-unrecognized