Written By John Caverhill
It is interesting to see how Christmas cards have changed over the years. A striking characteristic of Victorina cards is their depiction of youngsters as small adults, rather than children. In the Northern hemisphere sparkling snowy winter scenes have predominated for many years. However, Victorian era cards often showed summer scene with children playing in summer meadows or parks, while other cards featured floral arrangements, themes that we would now consider most un-Christmas-like.
I have several cards dating from 1908 to 1920 that were sent to my mother. There is a wide range of moods, from happy and bright to very serious, expressed in these cards. Most of them are postcard-size and style. They are made of thick, rather soft paper, with a flat, dull surface. This contrasts with the ornamentation and lettering, which is beautifully coloured, embossed, and shiny.
Some of the cards, while finished the same way, are small and in booklet form with fancy cord or ribbon in the spine. By the 1940s, when I was old enough to appreciate their part in the Christmas season, Christmas cards had reached their present form.
Those of us whose memories extend beyond the past mid-century remember when exchanging Christmas cards was an important part of the holiday celebrations. Mail service employees certainly earned their salary when Christmas cards were at their peak popularity. Mailing costs were unbelievably cheap when compared to long-distance phone calls, the only other way of communicating with distant friends and family. For many years a letter needed only a two-cent stamp, and Christmas cards in unsealed envelopes needed a one-cent stamp. By comparison, a long-distance phone call quickly escalated to a dollar or more, a large amount at that time. As a result, in mid-December mailboxes were crammed with Christmas cards along with the daily mail of letters, newspapers, and magazines.
Dad would come home from the weekly trip delivering the eggs and cream to Middlesex Creamery in London; in addition to the regular groceries, he would have several boxes of Christmas cards, mostly of mixed types with one box of specialty cards, all the same. After supper he and mother would get out the list of last year’s card senders, prepared and kept each year so no-one would be missed. Cards going to people living out of province or in other countries were mailed by the first of December with all cards in the mail well before mid-December.
Families displayed their cards in various ways. A common arrangement was to string them in long sagging curves on a dining room or parlour wall. Mother arranged ours with the longest row on the bottom and each additional row progressively shorter, ending with a top row of five or six cards. The result resembled a beautiful inverted fan containing fifty or more highly colourful cards.
When calling on neighbours, you were always invited to “take a look” at the current display. That pleasant custom meant that Mother had to take extra care when preparing the cards for mailing. Boxes of cards often came in sets—for example, a box of twelve cards might contain four sets of three cards with each set containing the same scene. Mom felt very strongly that each neighbouring family should receive a different card. “What will people think if they see the same card they received on a neighbour’s wall?” Dad wasn’t bothered by the thought of different families receiving the same card, so he just grinned and let Mom do the rest of the cards.
2043, eighteen years from now, will be the 200th birthday of the Christmas card. By then it may be only a memory shared by the older generations. Receiving and reading emails or ecards is efficient, but lacks the warmth and charm of a Christmas card that can be shared and displayed.
Sir Henry Cole, here is a heart-felt thank you for starting a wonderful tradition nearly 200 years old. Long may it continue!
