Before the Holiday Spending Reports: A Brief History of Christmas

First of all, let us wish you happy holidays, and a Merry Christmas. We assume this will pertain throughout the 12 Days of Christmas, whenever you catch up with this post.

And as we all slip into more congenial, hopefully somewhat more relaxed “holiday time,” we also leave behind our reports of spending and card use trends, card security breaches (but oh boy — more about that in the new year!) and such, for a little bit, to contemplate how it was we got “here.”