In the lead up to Christmas, project volunteers were invited to attend a thank-you lunch for all their hard work over the year. As well as acknowledging their contribution, this provided volunteers with an opportunity to meet other people working on different aspects of the project and to discuss how the various tasks differ, and how they all contribute to the whole.

Rather surprisingly, there are very few Christmas cards or festive items within the Graham archive collection. There is a scrapbook album which was prepared as a Christmas gift by the Stobart siblings for their mother whilst they were tenants at Norton Conyers, but this is not obviously seasonal, save for a small inscription giving the date as Christmas 1877.

Christmas postcard [ZKZ]

The one Christmas card example there is, comes from the papers of Beatrice Spencer-Smith, later wife of Sir Richard Graham – 10th Baronet. She was in touch with a cosmopolitan crowd, following her posting as lady-in-waiting to Lady Tweedsmuir and her time in Canada between 1935-1937. The rather exotic postcard, shown above, is from the Far East and features some additional colouring; ‘A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year’ is printed on the reverse.