by Carolyn Wakeman

Featured Photo (above): 1930 Merry Christmas William and Pauline Chadwick; Jack Hoffman Papers, LHSA

When Lyme artists sent holiday cards to relatives and friends, they often shared original watercolors, drawings, lithographs, and woodblock prints. The hand-crafted cards received by Harry L. Hoffman and his family display the rich variety of these Christmas and New Year’s messages. A group singing carols in front of the Florence Griswold House, a barnyard spruce tree decorated for the holidays, a rustic snow-covered cabin at night, Old Lyme’s millstream below a lavender-tinted sky, a wintry construction site in New York City, and a colorful harbor scene with fishing boats clustered at a wharf all conveyed the artists’ holiday greetings.

Merry Christmas from the Page Elys; Jack Hoffman Papers, LHSA

Christmas Greetings Mr. and Mrs. Charles Ebert M.R.E. [Mary Roberts Ebert]; Jack Hoffman Papers, LHSA

New Year’s Greetings from Everett L. Warner; Jack Hoffman Papers, LHSA

Merry Christmas Walter Magee; Jack Hoffman Papers, LHSA

New York Harbour, Beatrice Harper Banning; postcard, 1951; Jack Hoffman Papers, LHSA

Christmas Greetings from Katharine and Everett Warner; Jack Hoffman Papers, LHSA

Greetings to Jack Hoffman from Uncle Robby [William Robinson]; Jack Hoffman Papers, LHSA