You probably didn’t expect Victorian Christmas cards to be so unsettling
But nah, I don’t think they ever really made sense… and/or those people had extremely dark senses of humor, far beyond what I’d realized.
While it’s true that many of these holiday cards are pretty and quaint, but basic — exactly what you would expect from the romantic and dramatic Victorians — there’s enough strangeness here to add some truly random excitement to your 150-card scroll. Merry, merry! -BB
Victorian Christmas card of a family by the fireplace
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Christmas card with children caroling inside a star from the 1800s
Antique Christmas bubbles greeting card from the late 1800s
Christmas Bubbles of every hue
Fair, bright bubbles of friendship true
Such dear friend I send to you Happiness, Joy, Contentment
A young child getting warm by the fire on an antique Christmas card
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Weird Victorian Christmas card with a petulant boy in a teapot
Vintage Santa Claus card with dancing socks
Well, here we are again! A Merry Christmas to you all, both big and small!
On with the dance boys, there’s a good time coming!
Two antique Christmas postcards from the 19th century
Christmas comes but once a year – and when it comes it brings good cheer!
Cute antique Christmas card with flower and butterflies (1800s)
Creepy and strange Victorian Christmas card with bugs and a frog
Antique religious Christmas cards from the 19th century
Card from Victorian age – Santa putting kid in a sack
Children at Christmastime (1887)
Victorian children dancing around a decorated Christmas tree
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year greeting card from the 1900s
The glory of the world is come, and fit is we find a roome to welcome him. The nobler part of all the house here is the heart.
May you have all this time bequeaths of comfort and content. This my sampler is with greeting sent with hollie and ivie leaves.
Saint Nicholas in a cart being pulled by geese (1880s)
“Under the holly bough” A Victorian Christmas poem
Ye who have loved each other; sister and friend and brother in the fast fading year.
Mother and sire and child, young man and maiden mild, come gather here.
As memory shall ponder, each past unbroken vow.
Old loves and younger wooing, are sweet in renewing…
Under the holly bough.
Antique strange roast beef Christmas card
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Victorian greeting card of Santa in a Christmas pudding
5 small antique Christmas cards
Warm old-fashioned scene of a home decorated at Christmas
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Happy Victorian winter scene in the snow
Victorian-era Christmas card with angels
Creepy Victorian Santa with a pinecone man – Vintage card
An old-fashioned Christmas dance greeting card
Old Victorian card with a scary-looking clown eating a pie
A Happy Christmas – Flower girls
Christian seasonal cards from the 19th century
Antique illustration of Santa Claus delivering a doll to a little girl
Christmas Eve poems by Celia Thaxter
Happy Eve and holy hour
When man’s hope broke into flower
When God’s promise was fulfilled
Doubts were cancelled, fears were stilled
When the Word Incarnate came
Clothed in music, winged with flame!
1800s Christmas card with cherubs & lambs
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Christmas hymns from the 1800s
Creepy Victorian birds with torches to lighten Christmas (1800s)
Old-fashioned family at home on Christmas (19th century card)
Pretty old-fashioned Christmas cards from the 1800s
A really bizarre old Christmas card with one frog mugging another
Cute Xmas card — Little girl and a puppy (1800s)
Merry Victorian Christmas in Dreamland
Weird creepy snowman card from the 1800s
Mini-Santas bringing winter — Drawings from the 1800s
Sweet robins wish you a Happy Christmas (1800s)
Three antique biblical Christmas greeting cards
Creepy old Merry Christmas card – Candle and apple kissing (1800s)
19th century Merry Christmas cards with angels
Funny cute cat Christmas cards from the 1800s
“A Merrie Christmas and a glad New Year” – Matching Victorian cards
A wooden puppet left in the snow – Old-style Christmas card
Victorian Christmas card of kittens watching Punch and Judy
Humorous Victorian Christmas cards with cartoon animals
4 Old fashioned sepia Christmas cards
Little boy with a goat who has come to greet him – Antique card
Old holiday postcard depicting winter scenes
Victorian children sleeping in their beds with Christmas toys
3 antique Victorian Christmas cards
Merry Christmas card from the 1800s
Somebody told me I must say
That “here’s much love for Christmas Day”
But then I could not bring it all
Somebody says I am too small.
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Antique Christmas cards — St Nick and Merry Xmas
An Asian-themed antique Christmas postcard
Merry Christmas card with old-fashioned bell
Antique Victorian floral Christmas postcards
4 bookmark-sized Christmas cards from the 1800s
A Merry Christmas – Graphic design card with colorful patterned doorway
Virgin Mary Christmas card & poem from the Victorian era
A spotless maiden bears the babe
Foretold by Gabriel’s word
She carries on her virgin breast
Her savior and her lord
Glory to God in the highest — Old Christmas postcard
Children from the early 1900s, ready to celebrate
Christmas bells
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Young Christmas carolers and angels holiday card
Hark! The carol heavenward floats;
Listen to the liquid notes:
Listen well, and you may hear
Song of Cherubs hovering near.
Antique Christmas postcard of two girls and their cat
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Cute Victorian Christmas postcards with children
Christmas postcard with old-fashioned children
Victorian Christmas postcards with children
Family with presents on Christmas morning (1880s)
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Humorous Victorian Christmas cards with cartoon animals
A Victorian Christmas message on a postcard
Bitterly chill is the winter wind, biting our cheeks as we go;
Gray is the sky, and the silent fields are white with December’s snow
But the message we bear makes warm our hearts
With the joy of the Christmas Tide:
It is “May God’s grace, and Christ’s sweet peace, with you and yours abide”
Victorian Christmas card featuring an old-fashioned church
Two illustrated Christmas postcards from the 19th century
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Season’s greeting card of an angel and dove
Polar bear and penguins, Victorian-style
Old Christmas card from 1877 with the new year 1878
I wish thee a bright and a happy New Year, A Season of pleasure unclouded.
A twelve month that rocks not a sigh or a tear, In which all known joys shall be crowded.
Old Victorian choir singers postcard
“Peace on earth” — Child choir in front of a Victorian Christmas tree
Victorian twins with Christmas pudding
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Children and their dog playing on a sled in winter (1880s)
Winter birds on a branch at Christmastime
And a strange old Victorian Christmas card with a dead bird on it
Antique Christmas card of kids around a decorated tree
Victorian holiday card — Kids collecting a Christmas tree
Medieval style illustrations featured on a Victorian Christmas card set
“A load of Christmas greens” — Antique holiday card
Folding Victorian Christmas cards (1880s)
Mirth, friendship, love and light
Shall crown the winter night.
And every glad you’re welcome
Christmas tide
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Vintage card of birds resting in a tree during snowfall
Humorous Victorian Christmas cards with cartoon animals
Vintage “Glad tidings” Christmas card from the Victorian era
Vintage Xmas poetry card from the late 1800s
Christmas again! Christmas again!
With its holly berries bright and red;
They gleam in the wood, they grow by the lane
O has not Christmas A joyful tread?
“Wishing you a Merry Christmas!” card set from the 1800s
Victorian Christmas card of a young ice skater
Old-fashioned embroidery-style Merry Christmas card
“Peace, Goodwill to me and you” Antique holiday card
1800s Mother with children on Christmas postcard
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Victorian calligraphy Christmas and New Year greeting card
Three small antique Christmas cards in color
Pretty antique Merry Christmas card (1800s)
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“A Merry Christmas!” Antique holiday postcard
Pretty Victorian stained glass window design for Christmas
“Sweets to the sweet” Old-fashioned Christmas postcard
Old Victorian era Christmas card designs
Antique Victorian Christmas card – family playing music
Antique sprite-elf winter holiday card from the 1880s
Old Christmas carolers from the 19th century
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Antique holiday outfits – Victorian Christmas cards
Antique 1880s Christmas card of mother and child
Antique 19th century Nativity scenes on postcards
A Merry Christmas! – Antique holiday postcard
Victorian farmland Christmas card from the 1870s
Old-fashioned Christmas card with a illustration of an owl
Victorian lady dressed up for Christmas service greeting card
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2 Responses
Victorian Christmas cards were… fun! Apparently, dead birds were a popular motif, as dead birds were supposedly a symbol of good luck for the new year. Also popular were cards showing Krampus or even Santa beating or kidnapping misbehaving children.
Love these cards!