Sending a wartime Chrsitmas card

Buying Christmas cards is a very personal thing.

I always get mine from Oxfam and then try to do that juggling act of picking ones I think people will like but which don’t cost an arm and a leg.

And because I like to get them I do have to send a lot out.

That said there will always be a few which don’t get to a post box and a couple which are too late to be dropped off by hand.   If I have done the sums that just leaves the odd four or five which are surplus but some how never survive to be used the following year.

This is usually because I forget where I have put them.

Now over the years the fashion in cards has changed a fair bit that said the classic winter scene seems always to be the one that is most popular with our friends.

All of which made me reflect on the style of cards sent during the two world wars.  These ranged from the traditional to the sentimental and the patriotic.

So here are a selection of cards sent between 1914 and 45.

The first and last come from the collection of Tuck and Sons, and the one in the middle was sent by one of my uncles to my dad in the December of 1918.

Pictures; Horray for the King, 1914 and I’m dreaming of a white Christmas 1942, from Tuck & Sons, courtesy of Tuck DB, http://tuckdb.org/ and With Best Wishes for a Happy Christmas and a Victorious New Year, December 1918, from the collection of Andrew Simpson