CRAIG CONLEY (Prof. Oddfellow) is recognized by Encarta as “America’s most creative and diligent scholar of letters, words and punctuation.” He has been called a “language fanatic” by Page Six gossip columnist Cindy Adams, a “cult hero” by Publisher’s Weekly, a “monk for the modern age” by George Parker, and “a true Renaissance man of the modern era, diving headfirst into comprehensive, open-minded study of realms obscured or merely obscure” by Clint Marsh. An eccentric scholar, Conley’s ideas are often decades ahead of their time. He invented the concept of the “virtual pet” in 1980, fifteen years before the debut of the popular “Tamagotchi” in Japan. His virtual pet, actually a rare flower, still thrives and has reached an incomprehensible size. Conley’s website is OneLetterWords.com.
Here's a rather mind-blowing precursor to Dr. Seuss's How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Both of the top images are from the same page of Le Rire, Sept. 26, 1903.
Benjamin Disraeli (as the Ghost of Christmas Present) shows William Gladstone (as Dickensian Scrooge) Queen Victoria's Christmas dinner with peoples of the British Empire, 1886.
Here's how an outhouse overlaps with Christmas wishes. The talking outhouse is "obscured by vines and creepers" by day and night and confesses to taking the secrets you have hidden in the shadows with him to the "good sewers." His "one and only spasm" of the year is accompanied by lucky horseshoes. From Queensland, 1938. This will also be of interest:The Collected Lost Meanings of Christmas.