Beautiful old Christmas box from The Emporium in San Francisco

I recently purchased some vintage Christmas Cinderella stamps, and they came packaged in something even more beautiful than the stamps themselves — this old box from The Emporium department store in San Francisco, California.

The box measures 9½ inches by 6¼ inches by 1 inch. The illustration on the top is in black, red, green and blue. It features a tree-lined village and a trio of figures decked out in wide skirts and/or scarves. No artist is noted. The box originally contained "12 All Different Parchment Folders Colorful Christmas Designs." Perhaps they were done by the same artist who did the design for the box.

There's a price tag for The Emporium stating that this cost 50 cents at the time. I think that helps to confirm that this is many, many decades old. Emporium Capwell Co. was a San Francisco department store chain that was founded in the late 1800s and was known as The Emporium from 1896 to 1980. It then underwent some branding changes before going defunct in 1996.

If I had to hazard a guess as to when this box was produced I'd probably say the 1940s. But nothing from 1930 to 1960 would surprise me as the right answer.

Christmastime was huge at The Emporium, as was the case at many big department stores in the 20th century. This 1995 article on SFGate details some of its Christmas spectacles and readers' memories of them. There are also a lot of comments on this 2024 Facebook post.