COLLECTION #121: More Vintage Christmas Postcards

Here are the rest of my Christmas postcard collection.  (You can see the first batch here.)  I love these old postcards... the lovely soft artwork, the pretty scenes. Often you would find metallic gold decoration and/ or embossed designs on these cards, it's amazing the care and craftsmanship that went into something that sold for a penny for many years. It was inexpensive to mail postcards too, many people sent them instead of Christmas cards to save a bit of money. Since there was a space for a message, there is often a lovely personal and newsy message added. With Christmas cards, generally all you find is the signature of the sender.

I just love this one... such a sweet illustration

This is my favorite... love the cool design, font work, and love all that 'white space'!

The last one is a bit different... I picked it up a few years ago because it's of a place I remember fondly from my childhood... Santa Claus Lane off the 101 freeway near Carpinteria, California. (That's about halfway between Ventura and Santa Barbara on the California coast).  This was just a fun little place with a few shops- a bakery and restaurant, gift shops, etc. And a little train that children could ride! Santa Claus Lane was still there in the late '90s when we moved to Ventura County, so we took the kids by there a few times when they were younger. But progress intervened, and although there are still some little shops there, Santa Claus was taken down. But all is not lost... for Santa was refurbished, and now has a place of honor next to the freeway in Oxnard, where you can stop by and get 'up close and personal' with the jolly old elf.

Santa Claus Lane in Carpinteria, early '50s

Santa today, enjoying the 101 Freeway in Oxnard

COLLECTION #114: Vintage Winter Scene Christmas Postcards

Not all Christmas cards of the past had religious or Santa themes.... one popular holiday theme was winter... pretty scenes of snow and pine trees and people tramping through snowy woods.  Here are a few vintage postcards from the early 1900s with these themes. In addition to the pretty artwork, I absolutely LOVE the fonts. I'm a font nut, and these fonts are so pretty and evocative of that time.

I shot a few of the backs of the cards too, just to see a few of the messages and handwriting, stamps, and postmarks.

I do love the one from Sunny California... being a Californian myself, I can attest to the fact that that's how my area looks.. beautiful orange groves and sometimes-snow-covered mountain peaks! Such a pretty place!