Today is day 11 of 12 Days of Victorian Christmas cards and I thought I’d share a very traditional-looking design of the Nativity with you. This is a three-dimensional card from the 1890s and this is the front when the card is flat:

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 This is what the card looks like when it’s fully open:

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The card was published by Raphael Tuck & Sons. As well as being a three-dimensional card, it’s also a novelty card. If you shine a light through the blue cellophane-like material which represents the window, it illuminates the baby Jesus.

Now we’ve reached day 10 of 12 Days of Victorian Christmas cards, it’s about time that I share a mechanical card with you. Victorian Christmas card designers were ingenious in their designs and inventions and all manner of pop-up style cards appeared. This is one of my favourites: an embossed black cat. This is what the card looks like from the front when fully closed.

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The card opens out to reveal a brilliant concertina cat:

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Today is day 9 of 12 Days of Victorian Christmas cards and I have another image of a shaped card to share. This one’s in the shape of an envelope with a rose seal.

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The clue to what you’ll find underneath the seal is in the dog collar at the top:

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 The card is dated 1890 on the reverse and was sent to ‘Master Hippo’ from Annie.

For day 8 of 12 Days of Victorian Christmas Cards, here’s a very unusual card. Look away if you’re scared of spiders! In a circular shape, the design is of a large spider on its web with a fly approaching:

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The verse isn’t clear at all on the scan but it says:

Will you walk into my parlour
Said the spider to the fly.
I’ve a very nice plum pudding
And a beautiful Mince pie.

In today’s card for 12 Days of Victorian Christmas cards, I’d like to share another card with an animal design. This one is dated 1884 and it was published by Louis Prang & Co., Boston. A group of owls and rabbits are playing blind man’s buff by moonlight.

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In case you can’t read the verse, it says:

By loving friends you are surrounded,
Oh, be not blind to this, I pray.
They wish that joy and mirth unbounded
May crown your happy Christmas day.

On Day 6 of 12 Days of Victorian Christmas cards, here’s an example of the Victorians’ often very odd sense of humour.

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The card looks very unassuming with a baby’s bottle design but it opens up to reveal this:

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Imagine receiving this card as a ‘soother’ for Christmas! This is a very late Victorian or early Edwardian card published by Raphael Tuck & Sons.

Today, I’d like to share an image of a shaped Victorian Christmas card. These are my favourite types of cards because they’re all so different and unusual. This one has a Yule log design.

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Dating from the 1880s, the card is entirely flat but it’s embossed and has a three-dimensional effect. ‘Bringing in the Yule log’ was a tradition when a large log was brought home on Christmas Eve and burned for the 12 nights of Christmas until Twelfth Night.

Today, it’s Day 4 of 12 Days of Victorian Christmas Cards and we return to the anthropomorphic theme – I did warn you!

This card from the late 1880s is signed RD for Robert Dudley and it’s published by Castell Bros. In case you can’t read the verse, it says:

In spring the cuckoo calls, in summer swallow twits.
Plump goose to autumn falls, winter brisk robin fits. 

The sender has hand-written in the ‘from’ section:

The Town Friend the swallow
To the Country Friend the cuckoo.

On Day 3 of 12 Days of Victorian Christmas cards, here’s a design that doesn’t look very Christmasy at all: a chick with a special message.

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This slightly scary card is dated 1878 and is published by R. Canton. The design was part of a set which also included parrots, mice, cats and dogs. This is the card that first got me interested in Victorian Christmas cards, not just because of the unusual design but because it has a very cryptic message on the reverse. As mentioned yesterday, until the 1890s, most Victorian cards were flat, not folded, and the sender wrote a greeting on the back.

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In case you can’t read it, the message says:

Good-bye! I leave on Sunday next – fare thee well!!! 
Ato Acton [not sure of these words]
23 – 12 – 78

It’s difficult to work out the two words above the date because the way the letters are written is inconsistent. But the message has always intrigued me: who was the sender? Did he or she and the recipient ever meet again? All very intriguing…

Yesterday, I shared an image of a Victorian Christmas card featuring rabbits riding penny farthings. Today, I’d like to show you a more ‘typical’ design of a child enjoying winter pursuits.

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Here we have a young girl with her dog skating on the ice (probably a frozen river or lake), complete with a very stylish muff! This card is a typical design from the late 1860s and early 1870s; it has a scalloped edge and it’s relatively small, about the same size as a visiting card that the Victorians left at people’s houses to show they had called.

By the 1880s, children made up a good proportion of the target market so it was very common to see Christmas card designs featuring children. As mentioned yesterday, Victorian toy shops were one of the types of retail outlet which sold Christmas cards.

At first, Victorian Christmas cards were completely different from modern versions because they weren’t folded; they were flat and the sender wrote a message on the reverse. It was not until the 1890s that the folded card became popular.