Feature: Christmas cards

Christmas cards have been mass produced and exchanged by people and corporate bodies since the mid-nineteenth century and are a very common type of written communication. You would, therefore, be forgiven for thinking that thousands of Christmas cards should survive in archives in Scotland. In fact, very few are deposited in archives. Only a few dozen appear in the catalogue to the records in the National Records of Scotland.

The relatively few examples which are held by archives in Scotland are overwhelmingly in collections of private correspondence. Most people do not hold on to Christmas cards from previous years and so, when collections of correspondence and personal papers are deposited in archives, few contain Christmas cards.

In terms of the date range, the survival rate is fairly even from the 1870s onwards but a disproportionate number have survived from the First World War. Perhaps it is not surprising that relatively more have survived from this conflict. Many families would have held on to cards sent by soldiers who perished and the artistic qualities of Christmas cards were still very high at this time.

Individual regiments issued their own cards and the Christmas card of the Cameron Highlanders for 1918 is a striking example. It survives among the papers of Reverend William White Anderson, Minister of St Cuthbert's, Edinburgh (GD1/625/3).

Christmas cards were sometimes saved in scrap books and photograph albums. A photograph album of the Scottish National Council of Young Men's Christian Asssociations (YMCA) and Fellowship Unions and Associations (GD476/6/1) contains several cards, including one from 1918 of showing a sentry on duty by an arched gateway in the snow, a detail of which is shown at the top right of this page (GD476/6/1/76).

Another 1918 card in the album features a Tudor era warship and was sent to "The Misfires" band from John Kelman (GD476/6/1/75).