My challenge blog for Lunagirl Vintage Images, featuring fun creative challenges with prizes, projects, freebies, holiday and seasonal info, and more!
A place for mixed media artists, card makers, scrapbooking enthusiasts, fabric artists, creators of jewelry, altered art and crafts of all kinds.
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Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Antique "Xmas" Greeting from Santa?

Perfect for last minute Christmas projects, here is a lovely antique Santa Claus.  I love old Santa postcards.  He was certainly a popular subject for Victorian Christmas cards -- we have over 200 Santa images on my Lunagirl Victorian Holidays Vol 1 CD!

This particular card is especially interesting because of its greeting:
"All Xmas Joys Be Thine."

You might be surprised to see "Xmas" on an antique Victorian-era card, but actually the use of Xmas as an abbreviation for Christmas goes back to the Middle Ages.

The "X" is a CROSS and is a symbol or abbreviation for "Christ."  It's not a modern invention, and it was definitely not an attempt to "take religion out of Christmas" as some seem to believe.  It's just an old traditional abbreviation.

Anyway, I hope you'll enjoy this lovely old image of Santa!

3 comments:

  1. Hey Karen, thanks so much for the freebies, they're beautiful! happy Christmas! :o)xxx

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oh gosh, another beauty. If only I had seen this before I made my momma's card, I'd have used this image. Oh well, there is always next year.

    It is amazing how many people get offended at the idea of seeing 'Xmas' without understanding the meaning of how it came to be, in the first place. Some people need to do more research before they go off on others.

    Thanks so much Karen.

    Lisa D.

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I appreciate your visit and your comments! ~ Karen

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