The Historical Society of Pennsylvania will be closed all of next week in observance of the Christmas holiday. That's why we wanted to take this time to wish all of you a wonderful holiday season. As we have often done in the past at this time of year, featured below are some of the Christmas inspired images we've seen in the archives of small repositories. Enjoy!

The internet loves cute animals. Archivists do, too. So although there are many fabulous archival collections at the Philadelphia History Museum that I considered for the subject of this blog post, it seems almost inevitable that I settled on the Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals collection.

Friends’ Central School is a co-educational, Quaker, private school for children in nursery school through 12th grade. The school was established in 1845 in Philadelphia and originally located at 4^th and Cherry streets. It earned its name of Friends’ Central because its student body was comprised of the students of three different Quaker elementary schools who attended the “central” school for secondary education.

National History Day (NHD) is a great program to help students in grades 6-12 practice research and critical thinking skills, elements important to their future in the workplace and school. For students and teachers particularly interested in local history, or who live far from HSP and want to find primary-source documents close to home, a small repository may be a good place to do research.