Claude Monet, The Magpie. A Christmas card sent by my cousin Nancy.

In an earlier post, I wrote that my family is a card family.  We like to send and receive beautiful cards.  I like to think of cards as affordable art, a way to put a smile on someone’s face and brighten their day. I keep most of the cards I receive, storing them in pretty hat boxes.  The Christmas cards I keep in a separate box, so I can look at them each year at Christmas.  Having aunts, uncles and cousins in Scandinavia, I receive Christmas cards every year from Norway and Sweden.  They are some of my favorites.  My parents kept up Scandinavian Christmas traditions, so we grew up familiar with Sweden’s Tomten and Norway’s Nisse Man.  They feature prominently in the Scandinavian Christmas cards, just like Santa Claus does in the US.  I have selected a sampling of some wonderful cards from past Christmases.  I hope you enjoy them.

Swedish Christmas card, by Jenny Nystrom

Norwegian Christmas card, by Johnnie Jacobsen

A Christmas card from Sweden

A Christmas card sent by my Aunt Ruth in Norway

Swedish card, by Ingvor Holmqvist

Norwegian Christmas card

Norwegian Christmas card, Adolf Tidemand; detail from "Juleskikk"

A Christmas card; "From the Hill" by Pollyanna Pickering

Christmas card by Robert Duncan

By Molly Brett

A card from Sweden

Norwegian Christmas card by Johnnie Jacobsen

Christmas card printed in England

By Brian Paterson

Card by Mary Badenhop