Bizarre Christmas Cards Fron The Past

Christmas cards as we know them today are a Victorian invention, the first ones being sold in 1843. Sir Henry Cole, the first director of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, had cards printed and hand-colored for his friends. In 1843, he suggested that 1,000 cards be printed and sold to the public. They were not an instant success but over time grew into the massive business we know today.

    I will attempt to show you some bizarre cards from the past that will help you understand that the mind and reasoning of our ancestors was on an entirely different level. lets go there.................

1. A Merry Krampus Christmas  

In the Anglo-phone world, Father Christmas keeps a detailed reckoning of who is naughty and who is nice, ignoring the philosophical problems of those who are morally ambiguous. Still, his simple system leaves him with a list of who to reward with gifts comes the big day. What about those who are naughty? In Germany, a figure called Krampus fills that role.

A hairy demon, he comes to actively punish the naughty. Hence this card, with his image and the faintly sinister “Greetings from the Krampus.” There was a whole genre of these cards, and they were meant to be humorous, if terrifying, to children.

2. Jaunty Root Vegetables

A hearty winter meal often involves root vegetables. That warm and filling feeling is something everyone loves about Christmas dinner. It is possible that that is the aim of this Christmas card.

Here comes a root vegetable bearing a Christmas message. As if that was not festive enough, the root vegetable is wearing a monocle and strutting with a cane. If you are going to send a vegetable card, you might as well send a fancy one.

3. Lobster Riding Rat

We all splash out on food at Christmas. A heaving table is the sign of Christmas well spent. If you have the money for it, you might even stretch to lobster for your starter. How will you go about getting your lobster? You might order it in, but where is the fun in that? Far better to have it delivered by a rodent jockey. And everyone knows that French food is the best in the world. That must be why this rat is delivering his Christmas message in French.

4. Sad Birds

We have seen the Christmas robin already on this list, if only post-postmortem. Here, we see him in a livelier, though equally depressing pose. His red breast is formed by a waistcoat, and he is described as a kindly bird.

The only way for someone to be kindly is if they have the less fortunate to be kindly towards. Here, that role is filled by two tattered birds, one on crutches and the other looking miserably on. This card plays on the Victorian ideal of the charitable gentleman, but is still not one we would want on our wall.

5. A Bear Hug

Photo credit: Ebaum’s World

It turns out a hearty feeling is just what the makers of this card were aiming at. While a vegetable soup might make you feel as if you have received a great big hug, it is no replacement for the real thing. This card gives you the best bear hug possible—by using a real bear.

The brutal polar bear is giving someone in pointy boots “A Hearty Welcome” that seems to be crushing the life out of him. The message of this card, like so many others on this list, is lost. It could be that the makers, in showing the man being smothered reacting with a shrug, wished to teach those who saw it a how to cultivate a certain sang froid.

Feel free to drop your comment, we appreciate. Have a blessed Christmas. culled from listverse.com