The Jane Austen Christmas Keepsake

Each Keepsake is both a unique greetings card and a small work of art: a square, hand-folded parcel that opens layer by layer to reveal illustrations, details, and messages within. Write your message in the centre, fold and either keep for yourself or give to someone deserving. 

Each pack comes with two paper keepsakes, a practice sheet and instructions. The paper sheets measure 160mm x160mm. The designs are printed on traditional laid paper. 

During Jane Austen’s life, Christmas as celebrated with family gatherings, feasts and evergreen boughs around the home. 

This Keepsake shows illustrations from the ‘Twelve days of Christmas’ arranged like a miniature jeu de mIJmoire. The original carol, first printed around 1780 was less a song and more a children’s game—a counting and forfeits rhyme. 

On the inside you will find four of the splendid houses from the novels, and the characters walking up to celebrate Christmas together. 

There is also a letter from Jane Austen to her sister Cassandra. She wishes her a ‘merry Christmas, but no compliments of the season’. Compliments of the Season was the stuffy formal festive greeting of the time and naturally Jane Austen doesn’t buy into it.