Victorian Christmas Greetings Card with Child & Mistletoe

The mistletoe is genuinely enormous relative to the child, which means this greeting card is essentially a Victorian-era invitation to make out with strangers, delivered by someone who still needs help tying their boots—and it's tied to a staff the kid is clutching with both hands like a tiny spectral soldier. Dressed head-to-toe in white and saluting with one hand while holding this absurdly oversized bouquet of parasitic plant material on a stick with a yellow-green ribbon trailing behind it, this rosy-cheeked child presents the kind of image that makes you question what Christmas cheer actually looked like in the 1800s. Ellen Clapsaddle, the artist credited on this card, painted the kid with rosy cheeks and an expression of cheerful determination, as if the child has a quota of kissing zones to establish before sundown and is absolutely not going home until the job is done.