• Music: Luciano Pavarotti; Kurt Herbert Adler: National Philharmonic Orchestra, Wandsworth Boys Choir - Yon:

Advent 2011: May he bring you lots of presents and a merry Christmas-tide

Here's another card from the collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum. In retrospect, I'm not sure how I failed to post a "Santa on a bicycle" card last time. Seems pretty obvious now. Oh well. This actually bears a pretty strong resemblance to a bicycle, differentiating it from many "Santa on a non-traditional mode of transportation" cards I've run across. Granted, I can't see that it has a chain, but there's only so much detail you can add to an illustration like this.

We have a fair few winter bike riders here in Madison, some of whom will even go out in conditions like those shown on this card. You need studded tires if you want to ride through the snow like Santa, but that's a little hardcore for me. But for those who don't mind the cold but want to avoid the snow, the city does a good job of clearing the bike paths and the bike lanes on the roads. Better than certain northern Virginia homeowners associations I could name, that's for sure.


Victoria & Albert Museum, London