In my first foray into Victorian holiday greeting cards,
Creepy Christmas Cards: Bizarro Victorian Holiday Greetings, I found a strange world of violence and creepiness. Animals killed each other with glee, or were gleeful about being eaten for dinner, children were terrorized or abused. Yep, pretty dang merry.
But apparently in the sensibilities of the late 19th century, these cards were funny. They were cheap and popular. I'm not about to try to explain why these weird images evoked holiday laughs among some Victorians. Instead, let's look at some more images that just might be even weirder than some in the 2014 post.
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| What could be more festive to bring Christmas Blessings than a large, venomous jellyfish? |
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| In this card from the Nova Scotia Archives, colorful and weird sea creatures (starfish are also venomous) bring "Best Wishes for Christmas." |
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| Red
ants (Christmas color, with hats and musical instruments) attack and overcome
black ants (bah humbug color) to bring you "Compliments of the Season." | | | | | | | | | | | | |
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| A gigantic two-horned beetle dances with a frog as a green insect plays the tambourine. Although beetles are herbivorous, it's not too much of a stretch imagining the frog having his head accidentally pinched off. In these cards frogs were subject to all kinds of violence from mishaps to murder. |
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| "Hearty wishes" to you as one frog stabs another through the heart and a third leaps into the water. |
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| Yep, don't be an ass and overdo the booze at the holiday office party. |
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| "Loving friends" owls and rabbits dance by the light of the moon. Well, what could possibly go wrong here? |
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| It's not going to be a joyful Christmas for one of these creatures if the androgynous kid with the big fork spears accurately. |
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| Rabbit contemplating suicide in a snare. So happy. So content. |
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| Elves riding rats run down a rabbit for Christmas dinner. |
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| Beside using rats as hunting steeds, elves ( trolls?) enjoy a good dinner of roasted rat, cooked whole. |
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| A Happy Christmas! This time it looks like the human is the entree for the feast. |
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| Androgynous pothead weirdo brings compliments of the season standing before a blazing oven full of strange foods. |
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| Drunken rosy-cheeked Nordic folks primed with "akevit" are pulled in a sleigh boat by a presumably similarly inebriated hog. |
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St. Nick rams junior into a sack, to take as a present to . . .? 'Better watch out!
He didn't watch out, and now he's stewing in a teapot, sending "A Christmas Greeting with Love." |
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| World War I Santa with crying child and deer wearing gas masks. They don't even bother to caption this dreary image. |
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| Cat thugs lie in wait to bring greetings via beatings with fists and clubs. | |
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| The tables turned: rats about to tuck into a cat roasted with potatoes. What a feast! |
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This is only a sampling of the dozens of strange and creepy Victorian Christmas cards. Want to see more roasted rats and cats, dead birds, and accident-prone frogs wishing you compliments of the season? Check out these sites:
Undine@Horrible Sanity
Bored Panda
Kellen Perry
Susan Kulhman on Pinterest
The Daily Mail
