Vintage Christmas Monday - Czech Christmas Postcards & Traditions

These Czech Christmas postcards are not dated but are probably from the 1970s. All except one have writing in a foreign language on the back, but none are postally used. The printed greetings on the back include Radostné Vánoce (Merry Christmas), Štastný nový rok (Happy New Year), and Vánoční pozdrav (Christmas Greeting).

Czech Christmas trees are usually decorated on one of the two days before Christmas, and are taken down on January 6 (the feast of the Three Kings). At first the trees were decorated with apples, gingerbread, nuts, candles and straw decorations, and were topped with a star. Glass decorations later became common.

The next card shows a vánočka, a traditional sweet bread of braided dough. The tabletop wreath is similar to an advent wreath, but traditional advent wreaths have only four candles, one of which is lit on each of the four Sundays before Christmas. The wreaths are usually made of conifer branches and are decorated with cones, berries, and other materials.

The next card illustrates two traditional Czech customs. In the first custom, each person cuts an apple in half crosswise after Christmas Eve dinner. A core that looks like a five-pointed star is lucky and foretells good health and happiness in the next year. A star with four points means that illness is expected. A cross is even worse. In the second custom, little candles in walnut shell halves are floated in water to foretell the future of their owners. A candle that burns a long time predicts a long and happy life. If the little walnut boat stays close to the edge of the bowl, its owner will stay home.

Nativity scenes are one of the oldest Czech Christmas traditions. The nativities recreate the manger at Bethlehem where Jesus was born. Many different types of materials are used for scenes of various sizes.

For More information:

Czech Christmas Traditions

A happy and joyous Czech Christmas

I'm participating in Vintage Christmas Mondays.
Also see my December Vintage Thingies Thursdays posts for more vintage Christmas stuff.

PFF - Rural Letter Carrier - Christmas Wish for You

This is a postcard made for rural letter carriers, circa 1911. The name of a letter carrier is printed over the picture of the house. If you look closely, you can see some tiny letter under the poinsettias and a mail box on the fence.

This is the poem printed on the back of the postcard:

MY CHRISTMAS WISH FOR YOU

The Star that shown o'er Bethlehem
Near two thousand years now gone,
Is shining just as brightly still --
May it kindly lead you on.

The Heavenly Choir that proclaimed
"Glad Tidings" to unnumbered throngs,
Is singing just as sweetly yet --
May it sing for you glad songs.

The voice that taught from Gallilee
In accents low, is speaking still
For "Peace on Earth" to all mankind --
May it speak for you "Good Will."

May all your Christmas Joys and friends
Be lasting, firm and true.
This is my wish for you my friend.
My Christmas wish for you.

VTT - Yesterdays' Holidays

Today's postcard is one of the prettiest Christmas postcards I have. It was published by PFB early in the twentieth century. I think it really captures the feeling of what I imagine an old-fashioned Christmas was like.

The pages below are from the 1957 An American Annual of Christmas Literature and Art published by Augsburg Publishing House of Minneapolis, Minnesota. The picture opposite the title page shows a "modern" Christmas at Grandmother's House.

The other pages are a picture story by the artist Lee Mero in the form of old timers' reminiscences about Christmases "way back when." I hope you have time to read the story. I think it is interesting to see how the "modern" 1950s are compared to earlier times. Now, more than fifty years later, the 1950s are "way back when."

Vintage Thingies Thursdays

Vintage Christmas Monday - Nimble Nicks

Nimble Nicks are little Santa's helpers created for use on postcards and other paper products by the Whitney company of Worcester, Massachusetts. The Nimble Nicks wear little hooded Santa suits. They have holly leaf wings in back and a blonde curl in the middle of their foreheads. They are childlike in appearance, but are smaller than real children.

The Nimble Nicks postcards were probably made between 1915 and the early 1920s. Three of the Nimble Nicks postcards shown here are dated 1916.

Whitney postcards are usually referred to as "Whitney Made" because of the Whitney Made/Worcester Massachusetts postcard logo on the back of the card. The majority of Whitney Made postcards are lightly embossed and feature cute children. The postcards were manufactured in the United states, mostly somewhat later than the imported holiday postcards that were popular during the postcard fad years before World War I.

I'm participating in Vintage Christmas Mondays.
Also see my December Vintage Thingies Thursdays posts for more vintage Christmas stuff.

PFF - Season's Greetings

Season's Greetings to Marie and everyone. I decided to post something with blocks when I saw Marie's "Writer's Block," and I just happened to have a seasonally appropriate postcard with a bunch of old blocks. And since I am suffering from writer's block today, this card saved me the trouble of writing a more verbose post.

This postcard is probably from the 1980s. It is © The Golden Archives.

VTT - Christmas Ideals

The above image is a Christmas postcard ©1953. It is one of the few Christmas postcards that I have or have even seen from the 1950s. The rest of the images are from the 1959 Ideals Christmas issue.

Ideals has published holiday magazines for many years. Several magazine websites state that Ideals Magazine has ceased publication. I don't know whether this also applies to Christmas issues. There is a Christmas issue for 2009 that appears on Amazon and some other websites, but not on the Ideals Books website. It is described as a 65th anniversary edition.

I have chosen to show the cover and some representative pages from the 1959 Ideals Christmas issue. This issue has 100 pages. In 1959, Ideals published quarterly and charged $5.00 for a yearly subscription or $1.50 for a single issue. Fifty years later, I was able to buy several Christmas issues form the 1950s for only $1.00 each. Ideals Publishing Company also had five other smaller Christmas publications that were listed in the back of the 1959 Christmas Issue.

Vintage Thingies Thursdays

White Mountain White

This postcard is a winter view of the top of Mt. Washington, New England's highest peak in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. From left to right are Mt. Washington Observatory, Famous Old Stone, and Tip Top House. The Cog Railway trestle is in the foreground. Everything is covered with rime, a kind of ice that forms when water droplets freeze on a cold surface.

Mt. Washington has been a popular tourist destination since the 1850s and is famous for its severe weather. Mt. Washington State Park is at the summit and is surrounded by the White Mountain National Forest.

This postcard was sent by my father. It is postmarked Mount Washington, N. H., Aug 29, 1963. My father wrote about the weather. He started out saying the weather had been ideal and ended by saying the worst seemed to be over.

Mount Washington holds the world record for wind speed, 231 MPH, which was recorded in 1934. The Mt. Washington Observatory website gives the current summit conditions. That website also has a photo journal. The Mt. Washington Blog at AccuWeather.com also has many current and recent photos. The blog entry for August 31, 2009 is about some of the first glaze ice of the season and notes that it is not unusual to have freezing temperatures at that time of the year.

This post was written for
A Canadian Family
A Festival of Postcards Blog Carnival
6th Edition, December 2009: White