We have so many reasons to be thankful for the times in which we live: air conditioning, television, cell phones, cars, and no creepy Victorian-era Christmas cards. It may be difficult to imagine, but our ancestors of the 19th and early 20th centuries either had a distorted idea of what the yuletide season is supposed to represent or they had too much alcohol and not enough sex.
Whatever was wrong with them, we can undoubtedly determine their bizarre mindsets from a glance at some of their holiday cards. I mean…what reasonable person would glean Christmas joy from images of dead birds and dancing frogs? Then again, look who’s talking!
“May Christmas be Merry” (19th-century)
“May yours be a Joyful Christmas”
“May all jollity ‘lighten’ your Christmas hours”
“A Happy Christmas” (1900)
“Greetings from Krampus”
“Absent friends [natives], may we soon see them again! A merry Christmas to you” (1876)
“A hearty Christmas greeting: Four jovial froggies / a skating would go; / They asked their mamma, / but she’d sternly said, ‘No!’ / And they all came to grief in a beautiful row. / There’s a sweet Christmas moral for one not too slow. / Just so!”
The red ants have a flag that reads: “The compliments of the season”
“I have come to greet you” (Inside it says: “Loving Christmas greetings, may smiling faces ring around your glowing hearth this Christmas day, may fun and merriment abound, and all your world be glad and gay”)
“Best wishes for Christmas”
“A happy Christmas”
“So please excuse this impecunious card, As all I’m good for is a used up.”
Christmas card by Wilhelm Larsen (c. 1890)
“Every good wish for your Christmas”
“A Merry Christmas and Happy New Year” (1876)
“A happy Christmas to you”
“Wishing you a merry Christmas” (featuring a goldfinch, bee, and cricket)
“Merry Christmas” (Christmas pudding-themed card)
“With many merry Christmas greetings”
A Victorian snowman
“Here’s a crow for Christmas”
An example of one of the first Australian Christmas cards
Chief Writing Wolf 