This postcard is about 100 years old, but it would be appropriate for this year when many people are cutting back on holiday giving because of "hard times."
Country Club Plaza in Kansas City is the country's first shopping center. It began in the early 1920s.
The Plaza lighting traditon began in 1930. The buildings have been lit for the holiday season every year except 1973 when President Nixon urged curtailing the use of Christmas lights to reduce dependence on foreign oil imports
2008 is the 79th year of the tradition. It takes months to hang the lights and take them down each year. The lights are turned on at 5 p.m. each evening until January 11, 2009.
The date of this postcard is unknown (probably pre-1963).
Sterling Lindner Davis department store of Cleveland was a combination of three smaller stores — Sterling & Welch Co., W.B. Davis Co., and Lindner Co. The store closed in 1968.Each Christmas season, thousands of Clevelanders and visitors from miles around come to see the magnificent spectacle of Sterling Lindner Davis' traditional Christmas tree, towering in the Great Court. A live, 50 ft. tree, festooned with 60 lbs. of 'icicles', 1000 yds. of tinsel, 1500 ornaments, and illuminated by 6 banks of 750 candle-watt spotlights. It requires 650 man-power hours to trim by swinging stages suspended from the skylight, Once again, our Christmas tree awaits you…proud symbol that "There's Magic in a gift from S-L-D.!
The Sterling Lindner Christmas Tree tradition was started in the late 1920s and continued until 1967 (the three names were combined in 1950 and the Davis was dropped from the name in 1958). I also have a couple of different Sterling Lindner Christmas Tree postcards from the 1960s. On the 1960s postcards the tree is described as 60 feet tall — "America's tallest inddoor tree, symbol of Christmas in Cleveland for well over 30 years."
The Cleveland Memory Project has black-and-white photos of some other Sterling Lindner Davis Christmas Trees.
This Jim Beam Distilling Company advertising postcard shows the 1956 political bottles containing Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey. Pictures of Beam Political Bottles for presidential election years 1956 to 1988 can be found at POLITICAL DECANTERS SERIES (these 1956 bottles are described there as ashtrays).
This linen postcard view of Wall Street credits "Photo by Keystone," but it has been stylized so much that it looks more like an illustration. It was mailed in 1942 with a 1¢ defense stamp and a postmark urging one to "Buy Defense Savings Bonds and Stamps." The sender wrote "P.S. Too tired to write a message."Wall Street derived its name from the wall built by Peter Syuyvesant in 1653 to defend New Amsterdam at this point. It is now the foremost financial center in the world and the most powerful banks and brokers have their headquarters here.
This is the 69th year of The Minneapolis Aquatennial which is held the third full week of July. The dates for 2008 are July 12-27.The Mando-Aquatennial Canoe Derby, co-sponsored by the Minnesota and Ontario Paper Co., is held in conjunction with The Minneapolis Aquatennial, the nation's greatest summer festival. It is now the world's greatest canoe racing event and attracts top-flight canoeists from all parts of the United States and Canada. Starting at Bemidji, Minnesota the course extends 450 miles down the challenging, unpredictable and ever-changing Mississippi River to end at Minneapolis.
Another popular Brainerd postcard subject was Van's Cafe. This postcard dates from 1950. A similar view, differently colored, is available as an art print from Internet poster sellers.
The Brainerd, Minnesota water tower was built from 1919 to 1922. It is on the National Register of Historic Places. It was the first all-concrete elevated tank used by a municipality in the United States. 
Minnesota celebrated its Statehood Centennial 50 years ago in 1958. This postcard was published by the Minneapolis Post Card Club. On the back is the stamp commemorating Minnesota Statehood and a First Day of Issue cancellation on May 11, 1958.
Willie the Walleye is located in Baudette, Minnesota. The statue weighs 9,852 pounds, is 40 feet 4 inches long and has a girth of 21 feet 4 inches. This statue was constructed in 1959 and is the largest of the big walleye statues.For more on the "Walleye Capital" controversy see Walleyed War of the Walleye Capitals.The walleye is the most sought-after fish in Minnesota. Its thick, white fillets, handsome shape and coloring, and elusive nature make it the ultimate prize among anglers. Each year, anglers in Minnesota keep roughly 3.5 million walleyes totaling 4 million pounds. The average walleye caught and kept is about 14 inches long and weighs slightly more than 1 pound. The walleye is named for its pearlescent eye, which is caused by a reflective layer of pigment, called the tapetum lucidum, that helps it see and feed at night or in murky water.
This undated postcard shows a scene from Albany, New York's Annual Tulip Festival where "Colorful pageantry and entertainment mark the festivities preceding the selection and crowning of the new Tulip Queen."
This linen postcard of Pope Pius XII commemorated the 9th National Eucharistic Congress held at St. Paul - Minneapolis in June 1941. The pope did not atttend the Congress but spoke over the radio to those assembled for the Congress.Cardinal Pacelli, the future Pope Pius XII, was appointed Vatican Secretary of State in 1930. In 1936 he toured a number of cities in the United States. The trip covered about eight thousand miles in seven days, mainly by chartered plane.
This 1940 linen postcard shows Paul Bunyan and Sourdough Sam with Paul's Smelt Fryin Pan at the Escanaba Smelt Jamboree.
There are two types of boring postcards: interesting boring and boring boring. I enjoy collecting the kind of boring postcards that are not really boring (at least to me). Of course, which category a boring postcard belongs in is a matter of personal preference. After spending several hours last week searching through a collection of 11,000 boring postcards, I ended up buying about 65. One of them is this Wahoo, Nebraska postcard that I consider to be a real gem among boring postcards.Wahoo's website has a list of Fun Facts about Wahoo. First on the list is that "Wahoo has been the Home Office of the Late Show with David Letterman since March 1996." Wahoo is still claiming to be the home of Five Famous Men. Although the five men were alive in 1967 when this postcard was mailed, the last one died nearly twenty years ago.
For a recent version of the Wahoo sign, see The famous men of Wahoo.
The WAHOO "A"
Comparing Florida weather to weather "up north" was a popular topic on Florida postcards of the linen era. Some of the other postcards in this category compare picking oranges to throwing snowballs, water skiing to snow skiing, or sun to ice.
Year date postcards were most common during the years 1908-1910. This 1908 year date New Year postcard was published by the Rotograph Co., N. Y. City. It is a "Real Photograph on bromide paper." 
