In today’s world where the internet rules, the desire to send and receive Christmas cards is fast losing favour. Instead people send memes, GIFs and quick texts to celebrate the event. However, a study of old Christmas cards can be informative of times past. The earliest cards rarely featured winter or religious themes, often preferring scenes of fairies, flowers and such as a reminder that Spring was on the way (like many midwinter traditions). War time cards had a strong patriotic theme, whilst later cards gave emphasis to the religious aspects and others encourage values that were felt to be important to a well functioning society – the first commercial card produced showed a scene of three generations of a family toasting the recipient with scenes of charity to one side. But perhaps for me personally it is the quirky cards from the Victorian era which often has me wondering what the card designers were thinking.

The following is less a history of the Christmas card then a gallery of some of the strange, bizarre and downright weird designs found on Christmas cards.

Frogs tend to feature quite often in Christmas card design – although it is hard to say what exactly is being said with the first card…

The following few card designs feature food but not in ways you would expect.

Kittens often feature on Christmas cards, sometimes cute, sometimes not and as the card above shows not always in ways we expect either.

The following cards are simply those which are too weird for explanations.

For more interesting and quirky facts about Christmas please check out the other blog on Christmas traditions here (there are also some more carzy cards…)