To those of you who have just been introduced to TIME through a Christmas gift subscription starting with this issue, I would like to extend a warm welcome into the circle of the 2,000,000 families who read and enjoy TIME every week.

Since 19/23, our first year of publication, TIME has been sending special greeting cards (in the name of the giver) to those who received subscriptions as gifts. Some of those cards are reproduced on this page, and the one you received this year is shown below.

To express the feelings of a person who received TIME for Christmas, we improvised a fable in 1926 about "a little old man" named Marcus Strong, who met Santa Claus at his club--a fable which we still retell. In a moment of typical generosity, Santa told Marcus he could have anything he wanted for Christmas.

"Marcus did not want riches," the story said, "for that meant that all his relations would come to live with him. He did not want the Presidency of the U.S., for that meant packing up and moving to another city. He did not want a magic carpet because he knew that it would make him dizzy to look over the edge of it.

"So he asked Santa Claus to give him time to think it over. Now Santa Claus is a busy old fellow--and sometimes a bit careless. And when he went away from his club that night he wrote down in his little red leather notebook: 'Marcus Strong--TIME.' And that explains how Marcus received last year his 'best Christmas present since 1876.' "

Your Christmas gift of TIME, I'm sure, was no mistake. The friend who gave it to you must have known that you are interested in the world's news and would be happy to get it in a single package every week. So to you, to Marcus Strong, and to every TiME-reader, the merriest of Christmases and the best of personal wishes for the New Year.

Cordially yours,

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