Strange Victorian Christmas Cards Ranked

All the frogs, bugs, and threatening greetings… and more!

It’s the time of year for Christmas cards! When I think of these cards, I see snowmen, Santa Claus, woodland creatures, gnomes, and other cute holiday symbols. But at the dawn of card-sending – or when sending letters and cards became cheap and accessible to the masses – in the 1840s, the images on Christmas cards were vastly different.

In the mid-1800s, and basically, always, it was considered rude not to answer a letter so Christmas cards…