A few Victorian holiday cards we find interesting
Greeting cards are tied to the culture, period and place they came from. Sentiments and designs that look strange now were often read as signs of good fortune, and some were poking fun at superstitions, according to Samantha Bradbeer, archivist and historian at Hallmark Cards. Once the format caught on, Victorians wanted novelty. By 1885 you could buy cards with silk fringe, glitter attachments and mechanical moving parts, though most stuck to flora, fauna and seasonal landscapes.
A wealthy English businessman commissioned the first proper Christmas greeting card around the time Dickens published A Christmas Carol. It is a pleasant scene, everyone enjoying a holiday meal with food and drink aplenty. The sentiment reads A Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year to you. Lovely, pleasant, not at all morose.
Plenty of Victorian cards feature anthropomorphized animals, like this rooster and chicken sledding down a hill. It reads here’s a Crow for Christmas. This one is our personal favorite.
Who would not want to spend the holidays with a family that stays together by drinking together, being pulled around in a very nice sled by an inebriated-looking hog. It reads Glædelig Jul, Danish for Merry Christmas.
This one says A Happy Christmas while Santa nonchalantly loads a bewildered child into his sack.
In this one, a frog kills another frog over what might be two thousand pounds sterling, or possibly just flies. The sentiment still reads A Merry Christmas to you.
It looks like these owls and rabbits are taunting the blindfolded one in the middle, right up until you read it. By loving friends you are surrounded. Oh, be not blind to this, I pray. They wish that joy and mirth unbounded may crown your happy Christmas day. Turns out they are just friends in a snowy field playing a rousing game of whatever this is.
Yours do not have to be this weird
Make your family or your clients feel appreciated with a season’s greetings of your own. We can help you make someone’s season a little brighter, with considerably fewer murderous frogs.
For a deeper history, History.com has Some of the Earliest Christmas Cards Were Morbid and Creepy, which is where the Hallmark archivist quotes above come from.
Want more creepy Victorian cards? Try Undine on Twitter, Bored Panda, or Susan Kuhlman on Pinterest.
Want to tuck a little something into the card? Gift certificates come in $10, $25 and $50 denominations. See them in the shop.
Shopping for that special somenerd? Our shop is full of quirky gifts.
