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So, according to Spode (who, I guess, would know), this famous (and ubiquitous) illustration was commissioned in 1938. Spode charged a young designer with making it for the American market.

One problem. He’d never seen a decorated Christmas tree before. In 1938. In England.

That’s part of the reason he put Santa Claus on top of it. Another American Xmas figure. It’s also how I always knew this was an English design.

We always think what we have known is eternal and from time immemorial. Like I said, Dickens didn’t know a Xmas tree, in his childhood or his Christmas books. Even in 1938, in England, which we casually think of as the home of our “traditional Christmas,” they were very unusual.

Funny the things we assume about our “traditions.”