When Xmas Cards Were More Disturbing Than Merry

Oh yes, it's a jolly Xmas indeed when you walk through the neighborhood and spot a gremlin lying in wait with a baseball bat, ready to brain you. Is this image supposed to engender good cheer and happy holidays? It wasn't exactly an outlier among Xmas cards from 100 years ago or more, which could be fairly disturbing. It could have been an attempt to elicit a laugh at other people's expense. As Mel Brooks once said, “Tragedy is when I stub my toe. Comedy is when you fall into an open manhole and die.” Maybe that's what the designer of this card had in mind.

"Thoughts of you." That almost seems like a threat! But since there were a lot of these weird Xmas cards around in those days, maybe they were taken as the comedy they were intended to be. You can see a roundup of 20 disturbing vintage Xmas cards at Mental Floss.