The Art of …

… Victorian Christmas Cards

Commercially produced greeting cards hit the market in 1840, and by the 1860s, they had become very popular. The Christmas cards sent during the Victorian years had a much different sensibility than those we send nowadays.  Hyperallergic put together a good selection with many featuring animals doing some unusual things, and I’ve chosen a few of my favourites to share with you.  There are more to see at the above link.

Let’s start with a few just plain cute cards.

“A happy Christmas” (1908) (via NYPL) Christmas Card, from Hyperallergic.

“In silvery accents, whispering low – A happy, happy Christmastide!” (England, 1880) (courtesy Toronto Public Library) Christmas Card, from Hyperallergic.

An example of one of the first Australian Christmas cards, collected by Bessie Rouse (via Sydney Living Museums) Christmas Card, from Hyperallergic.

“Wishing you a Merry Christmas,” featuring a goldfinch, bee, and cricket (via University of Glasgow Library/Flickr) Christmas Card, from Hyperallergic.

“A happy Christmas to you” (via TuckDB Ephemera) Christmas Card, from Hyperallergic.

“Every good wish for your Christmas,” with frogs! (via the Library of Birmingham) Christmas Card, from Hyperallergic.

“A joyful Christmas to you” (via Derbyshire County Council Record Office) Christmas card, from Hyperallergic

“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” (via TuckDB Ephemera) Christmas Card, from Hyperallergic.

And now, a few more unusual cards.

“May Christmas be Merry” (19th-century Christmas card) (via Lilly Library at Indiana University, Bloomington) Christmas Card, from Hyperallergic.

Christmas card by Wilhelm Larsen (1890-92) (via National Library of Norway/Flickr) Christmas Card, from Hyperallergic.

“May all jollity ‘lighten’ your Christmas hours” (via Lilly Library at Indiana University, Bloomington) Christmas Card, from Hyperallergic.

“Now dance and jump and make good cheer for Christmas comes but once a year” (L. Prang & Co., Boston, 1888)(via Special Collections Department, Postcard Collection, Enoch Pratt Free Library) Christmas Card, from Hyperallergic.

 

and finally, a few cards that I consider downright frightening.

“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!” (via Nova Scotia Archives/Flickr) Christmas Card, from Hyperallergic.

“A Merry Christmas to you” (via Horrible Sanity) Christmas Card, from Hyperallergic.

“A happy Christmas” (via Boston Public Library) Christmas Card, from Hyperallergic.

The red ants have a flag that reads: “The compliments of the season” (via University of Glasgow Library/Flickr) Christmas Card, from Hyperallergic.

“A Merry Christmas and Happy New Year” (1876) (via National Library of Ireland/Flickr) Christmas Card, from Hyperallergic.

“May yours be a Joyful Christmas” (via Tea Tree Gully Library) Christmas Card, from Hyperallergic.

“With many merry Christmas greetings” (via TuckDB Ephemera) Christmas Card, from Hyperallergic.

“A Happy Christmas” (1900) (via Missouri History Museum/Wikimedia) Christmas Card, from Hyperallergic.

A Krampus Christmas card (via Tea Tree Gully Library) Christmas Card, from Hyperallergic.

My thanks to  Hyperallergic for putting together this interesting assortment of antique Christmas cards. There are a few more to be seen if you click the link.

Merry Holymas

Merry whatever you celebrate. I personally would not mind a little war on Christmas, I hate the holiday and everything it officially stands for (hint- it does not stand for love and family, that is most people’s personal addition). But I love the winter solstice and the promise of longer days and shorter nights again. We had an extremely warm bud muddy and gloomy fall so far, but today, finally, winter has begun for real – we had our first real snowfall of this year.  That has cheered me up ever so slightly.

© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.

I might have to dust off the snow of the bonsai trees, if it gets wet, it could break them.

Kestrel Whoosh

Yesterday evening I heard a banshee wailing behind my window. Well, not being superstitious and knowing my birds I feared not for I knew it was no banshee but a kestrel. The little bugger has probably slept somewhere in my roof beams and decided to give me a loud “good night” just before sundown. In the morning, shortly after I woke up, I heard it again, so I put on a jacket and went out to take a look. And I saw the bird whooshing over the roof, confirming my surmise. I do not know exactly where it was overnight, but it was indeed somewhere near my window.

Later on, just as I was preparing to go pick up my mother at a hospital after successful surgery, I spotted the bird on a tree in my neighbor’s garden and I have managed to make a few pictures before it whooshed again. I even managed to open the window, although it did not help too much, the weather was foggy and the lighting was craparooni.

© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.

More pictures below the fold.

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The Wizard’s Manse and Observatory

I have something wonderfully whimsical to share from Avalus,

A wizard manson with an observatory:

All made from cardboard, leftover foamboard and a few bits of fly netting and translucent paper for the windows. I did not make many photos of the building process.

It was really fun to craft models again and over the next month or so I created a handful of different buildings.

When I was younger I was a regular tabletop wargamer. Over the years, the gaming fell away, but the crafting and painting of miniatures and terrain pieces stayed, if somewhat periodically. In the first week of the lockdown, some stuff in my flat broke and I had to order replacements over the internet (something I do not like to do). And then, when I had a few boxes and other carton pieces, ready to be thrown away, inspiration struck.

I am not sure yet, what I will now do with them, as I don’t really play more than once a year. Probably gift them to my gaming friends.

©Avalus, all rights reserved.

©Avalus, all rights reserved.

©Avalus, all rights reserved.

©Avalus, all rights reserved.

©Avalus, all rights reserved.

©Avalus, all rights reserved.