Victorian Christmas Card with Santa & Telephone - Merry Christmas

A telephone handset and its curly-haired user on the right, paired with Santa clutching his own handset on the left while separated by approximately eighteen inches and a decorative vertical panel, suggest that the Victorian solution to 'just talk to the kid directly' was 'invent elaborate telephone infrastructure.' The card's split composition unites them only through the poem 'Thine Own Wish I Wish I Thee' and a mutual commitment to unnecessary technology. Holly dangles suggestively from the top of the dividing panel, Santa's sack of toys bulges behind him, and somewhere a graphic designer thought this layout communicated 'wholesome holiday cheer' rather than 'emotionally distant relationship mediated by consumer technology.' Artist Ellen H. Clapsaddle signed this masterpiece, presumably while cackling.