Advent Calendar / 14 December
Help. I’ve got so caught up this year in blogging about Swedish Christmas traditions that I’m getting behind with my own!
I got my few overseas Christmas cards sent off on time last week, but then yesterday I “suddenly” realized that I only had a couple of days left before I also need to post all the European and Swedish ones, which I hadn’t even got started on…
This year I ended up with a mix of cards; ordering about half of them printed from one of my own photos, making a few myself at home (but not as many as I over-optimistically thought I would), using some bought earlier in the autumn at a market, and having to buy some more from the bookshop. There is of course nothing really wrong with that - except that in my case it means too many last minute decisions! (who shall get which card etc)
As Paul Simon says in one of his songs on the album Hearts and Bones: “Maybe I think too much”. (Only in my case there is probably no maybe about it.)
Note to self: Next year, just order enough copies of the same card for everyone!!!
Oh well, I’m almost done now; I’ll put the stamps on tomorrow.
The two cards I chose for you in this blog post were painted by Swedish artist Jenny Nyström (1854-1946). She became famous as the person who created the Swedish image of the jultomte on numerous Christmas cards and magazine covers, linking “Santa Claus” to the gnomes of Scandinavian folklore. Some of her classic cards are still reprinted and sent around every Christmas.
These two hardly belong to the most commonly seen, though. Both are old ones in a small size which I’m not sure is even allowed to send in the post any more. I have a whole bunch of these small old unwritten cards, all different (and most of them by less well known or even anonymous artists). I’ve had them for more than 30 years, and they seemed old to me even then. They belonged to either my grandmother or her sister.
4 comments:
I like the simplicity of the first card and the significance of the second. Like you I've left my cards rather late. Not that that's particularly unusual these days.
these are great and very different from the cards we have here in USA. i like these very much and i know that I do think to much
Great cards, I was way behind in mailing mine too.
An interesting post! I've had to resort to two or three different kinds of cards on Christmases past. My problem with that is that I never remember who got which card, so I could send them the same card in the future! I just got my cards yesterday, I had ordered them in the mail, and it takes me about four days to get them done. So there is a limit on size with what you mail? You can't mail real small cards?
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