Vintage Merry Christmas Santa Bells Card - Early 1900s Chromolithograph

A man is smoking a pipe mid-flight on a giant winged bell he's riding side-saddle like a deranged cowboy, which perhaps explains why he's ringing two handheld bells with the manic energy of someone who absolutely cannot be reasoned with. An elderly Santa hot-boxing above a moonlit cityscape on a flying bell—ringing handheld bells, smoking a pipe, completely unhinged—is apparently the height of 'safe skies', while the holly branch inexplicably floats nearby and the full moon glows behind his head like a halo—suggesting either divine endorsement or a fever dream. The poem below cheerfully insisting everyone loves 'St Nick's' arrival feels dangerously optimistic given that this man is coming in hot on a flying bell with no clear landing strategy.