More Creepy Christmas Cards: Bizarro Victorian Greetings

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.

What could be more festive to bring Christmas Blessings than a large, venomous jellyfish?

In this card from the Nova Scotia Archives, colorful and weird sea creatures (starfish are also venomous) bring "Best Wishes for Christmas."

Red ants (Christmas color, with hats and musical instruments) attack and overcome black ants (bah humbug color) to bring you "Compliments of the Season."

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.

"Hearty wishes" to you as one frog stabs another through the heart and a third leaps into the water.

Yep, don't be an ass and overdo the booze at the holiday office party.

 "Loving friends" owls and rabbits dance by the light of the moon. Well, what could possibly go wrong here?

It's not going to be a joyful Christmas for one of these creatures if the androgynous kid with the big fork spears accurately.  

Rabbit contemplating suicide in a snare. So happy. So content.

Elves riding rats run down a rabbit for Christmas dinner.

Beside using rats as hunting steeds, elves ( trolls?) enjoy a good dinner of roasted rat, cooked whole.

A Happy Christmas! This time it looks like the human is the entree for the feast.

                   

Androgynous pothead weirdo brings compliments of the season standing before a blazing oven full of strange foods.

Drunken rosy-cheeked Nordic folks primed with "akevit" are pulled in a sleigh boat by a presumably similarly inebriated hog.

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."

World War I Santa with crying child and deer wearing gas masks. They don't even bother to caption this dreary image.

Cat thugs lie in wait to bring greetings via beatings with fists and clubs.

 

The tables turned: rats about to tuck into a cat roasted with potatoes. What a feast!

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

Creepy Christmas Cards: Bizarro Victorian Holiday Greetings

  The first Christmas card was sent by a wealthy English businessman in 1843. Needless to say, these first holiday cards were only for the affluent. By the 1880s, after the custom had been well established in Germany, Canada and the U.S., as well as the U.K., many thousands of cards were being sent out. In parts of Britain postmen delivered them on Christmas morning.

The first Christmas card, with lines to add the sender's and recipient's name.

 While looking for photos to use in a holiday blog post, I became enthralled by the images of Victorian Christmas cards posted online.  What struck me immediately is that they are overwhelmingly secular and sometimes quite bizarre.  Most of them are romantic images: a hooded Father Christmas, rosy-cheeked little girls pulling sleds, flowers and greenery, angels, a well-heeled couple with their children admiring the tree.
  However, what interests me is not these beautiful visions but the weird, bizarre, and sometimes disturbing Victorian cards. Here is a selective sampling:

Juvenile delinquents gleefully pelt a police officer from behind with a snowball, "with the compliments of the season."

"May yours be a joyful Christmas," says the deceased bird. This type of card showing beautifully drawn dead birds was quite popular in the late 1800s. WTH? (This dead wren probably represents the disturbing custom in Ireland of boy-beggars killing these songbirds on St.Stephen's Day. See comment below.)

A posh "kindly robin" drops a berry into the hat of a crippled beggar-bird.

As with today's food marketing, in this card, animals are eager to be eaten. A turkey and a plum pudding (?!) ride pigs in a "dead heat for the plate."

A strangely dressed boy with a body like a woman's cracks the whip at a poodle riding a pig with a collar in "Hearty Greeting."

"A Merry Christmas to you," with a stab in the heart.

A dead chipmunk for you, master. I know that's what you wanted for Christmas.

Peter Rabbit wishes you a happy Easter, er, "Xmas."

A girl pulls a rickshaw while the one of the slacker boy passengers whips her on, "with loving Christmas greetings."

Look out! An emu brings "unwelcome Christmas greetings" in this Australian card.

A cautionary tale? Four frogs (who are prone to violence and mishaps in these cards) have taken a tumble on the ice, dropping their pipes. Don't smoke and skate?

My hands-down favorite: A mouse rides a (boiled?) red lobster, wishing the recipient "Paix, Joie, Sante, Bonheur," or "Peace, Joy, Health and Happiness."

 Merry Freakin' Victorian Christmas!
('Hope you weren't too creeped out.)