A gap in your gift list?

The image is of an 1895 Christmas card from C Division of the North West Mounted Police at Battleford, NWT (now Saskatchewan) from Library and Archives Canada. Not familiar Christmas imagery, but it is surprising how that has changed over the years. The Ottawa Citizen has an article, not online, that draws on material in the LAC collection, Some images in the article are reproduced under Christmas Cards in the Citizen gallery.

Do you have historic Canadian Christmas cards you might donate to LAC. By far, their most valued source of acquisitions is private gifts donated by individuals, companies, organizations or associations.

LAC is interested in works or documents created or published in Canada, regardless of subject, language or format, and those created or published outside of Canada, provided the author or subject has some national relevance. They can be archival documents, books, films or videos, photographs, maps or architectural plans, portraits or other works of art, sound recordings, musical scores, microfilm, digital or analog material. If you're concerned that your materials may not be properly appreciated by the next generation of your family consider a gift to LAC, or a provincial or local archives, historical society of museum.

You can find out more about donating archival materials to Library and Archives Canada here.

Here's a Christmas bonus. You can download a pdf with the words of many popular Christmas season songs, courtesy of the Ottawa Citizen, here.