Nostalgia: Vintage Christmas Card No. 8 Santa's Watching

Vintage Christmas Card No. 8 Santa's Watching

This postcard made me do a double take when I first saw it.  In the image Santa has what at first glance appear to be a very high tech set of binoculars, but after checking my dates, I can promise that it is some WWI technology being put to use for worldwide gift delivery--both greeting and the postmark validate it is 1923.

I feel like this image gives new meaning to "checking his list"!

The greeting below the image reads:

Merry Christmas

Here's for a Merry Christmas
The best in many a day.
May Santa scatter his blessings
Of joy along your way.

The message reads:

So. Seubee (?) Maine

December 18, 1923

Dear Evie with best wishes for a Merry Christmas

hoping you are well Your Aunt - J.G.

Nostalgia: Vintage Christmas Card Countdown No. 6, Santa's on the Line

Vintage Christmas Card Countdown No. 6, Santa's on the Line

This unusual postcard shows Santa on a candlestick phone and captures a glimpse of our technology and communication future.  Based on the telephone style and Santa's rosy cheeks and jolly glance, I am dating it to the early 1920s as this is the rare "unsent" postcard with no postmarks or messages to mark its exact place in time.

The greeting is a wonderful little verse, that I feel is still true no matter how fast and often technology lets us travel or connect:

From here to there's an awful ways,

Measured by miles and nights and days,

Yet Christmas always brings you near--

The season's best to you my dear.

Nostalgia: Vintage Christmas Card Countdown No. 2, When Bells are Ringing

Vintage Christmas Card No. 2, When Bells are Ringing

This vintage Christmas card from 1905 blends a late Victorian/early Edwardian Santa image (he's more serious than jolly and looks like a monk with no trim on his cap) with the elegant leaves and shapes of Art Nouveau.  The card is embossed and the Santa figure is a separate die cut image that is tucked into an opening in the front of the card, giving it a sense of depth and dimension.

The text is interesting because it is one of the first times that Christmas is abbreviated to the casual "Xmas."

The text inside is flat printed in a pale blue and reads:

Wishing You a Merry

and Happy Xmas

To-day the golden sunlight

Is fluff and broad and strong;

The glory of the One Light

Must overflow in song,

Song that floweth ever,

Sweeter every day,

Song whose echoes never, 

Never die away

And to my delight, on the back in pencil is this message:

With love and a Merry Christmas to May Fraiser

AP Bulger 

Dec 1905