Breakfast Links: Week of December 26, 2011

To help usher in the new year, we present our weekly offering of Breakfast Links – our favorite links to other blogs, web sites, pictures, and articles, collected from around the Twitterverse.

• Pig on lap, drink in hand—Mela Koehler's New Year's card: http://met.org/uLEOg9

• Really lovely blog post on year endings, self-doubt & John Keats: http://goo.gl/H5qEY

• For New Year 1696: the Window Tax was introduced in England and Wales. http://fb.me/11EE2rkDx

• A look at Dresden whitework ruffles from 18th c women's dress: http://bit.ly/uwNhwT

• 18th c sailor Ann Mills, lady pyrates, & why women went to sea: http://bit.ly/u6dm39

• A stay in the country: British country houses as hotels - & a bad plan http://wp.me/pA74c-ER

• First feet, black buns, and hansels: the language of Scottish New Year’s traditions http://oxford.ly/uHSLCc

• The ‘Breakfast at Tiffany's’ house, now for sale: Social tragedy, cinematic history on E. 71st Street: http://bit.ly/tRc9Yp

• Leonardo da Vinci’s symbolic “Lady with an Ermine”: http://econ.st/vtpP2G

• More on early 19^th c. magazines for women - John Bell and La Belle Assemblée http://bit.ly/rRF8sg

• Twelve Days of Christmas - Sandro Botticelli 1445-1510 - http://bit.ly/vKg3Fa

• A high-flying ski jump in 1912...in Chicago? http://bit.ly/vEYB9r

• Myths Debunked! King James didn't translate the KJB ... nor was he a saint. http://bit.ly/sBrUnD

• Charming image of an Edwardian lady w/ snow-covered coat, from a wonderful early 1900s album http://flic.kr/p/aXFu3H

• Christmas Decorations at Jane Austen's House: http://wp.me/p1tEEF-2V

• A short collection of Victorian jokes, as compiled by: http://bit.ly/qHchQF

• How a train accident in 1865 could have made ‘Great Expectations’ Dickens' last complete novel: http://bit.ly/umGTOn

• Currant fritters (boiled in butter!) from 1759 cookery book by William Verral, master of White Hart Inn, Lewes: http://bit.ly/uplWaP

• Designer Adrian resists the New Look: 1948 Adrian suit http://bit.ly/uwTRwZ

• Good compilation of Britain's finest follies: http://tgr.ph/rOYeTt