Nothing says Happy New Year like a bug looking through a telescope
CBC
While Christmas cards these days usually feature the family posed in front of a lovely winter backdrop or a generic image of Santa Claus, seasonal greetings used to be collected like hockey cards or paintings, and featured anything from a bug looking through a telescope, to a lobster for Christmas dinner.
"A lot of the Christmas cards were kind of considered little pieces of art that they'd want to put in scrapbooks and then show to their friends," said Christine Lovelace, head of the University of New Brunswick's archives and special collections.
UNB has been sharing the hundreds of old Christmas card scrapbooks in its collection on social media over the holiday season.
The collection includes sets of cards sent to Canadian poet Bliss Carman, who was born in Fredericton and lived from 1861 to 1929. It also includes a collection from librarian Beatrice Welling, who amassed cards from Canadian artists.
Some of the cards in the UNB collection were made by New Brunswickers, while others came from across Atlantic Canada and the United States.
"Because they show a connection between people, they do hold a certain amount of interest and inspiration for us today," said Lovelace.
"To look back at all these beautifully done cards and think about the thought that went into sending them and then to the interest in them to collect them and keep them in the book and keep them year after year after year."
Christmas cards were so popular in the 1870s and '80s that they would actually be reviewed in newspapers, like movies and TV shows today.
And it went well beyond Christmas, according to Lovelace. People would send out New Year's cards and Easter cards as well. Basically, if there was a celebration, people would send a special card.
There were even specific scrapbooks designed exclusively for showing off holiday cards, and the cards themselves were affordable, making them easy to collect.
"Because they were considered little pieces of art, it was something that a lot of young ladies of a certain age would do," said Lovelace.
"Some [were] just bought to be saved as art, but a lot of them would have a little message on the back."
The Fredericton Region Museum also has a collection of Christmas cards from the late 1800s and early 1900s, collected by New Brunswick families.
Melynda Jarratt, a member of the exhibits committee for the museum, said old Christmas postcards make for more than just a neat collection. They tell the story of the people who sent them.
Aggressive patients and lack of security are making nurses feel unsafe in a rural Western Manitoba emergency union, says the Manitoba Nurses Union.
Saskatoon resident Delynne Bortis knew her commute to work Tuesday morning would be particularly difficult.
WARNING: This story contains details of abuse and intimate partner violence:
The amount of money it takes for people to earn a living wage has increased across the province, according to a new report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA).
The new owner of Ontario steelmaker Stelco says his company "will not disappoint the people of Hamilton and Nanticoke," where the business's major facilities are based.
A Winnipegger is warning others about an intricate scam she says she almost fell for.
Fort William First Nation is opposing a planned redevelopment of the Ontario Power Generation's (OPG) 117 year old Kakabeka Falls Generating Station, which is located in their traditional territory.
A building that sits at the corner of Sussex Street and Brunswick Avenue has had many lives over the last century — being a church, a school and offices. Now it's set to become housing, at a time when the city sorely needs it.
A Waterloo, Ont., elementary school principal will be sentenced in the new year after pleading guilty to child sexual exploitation charges following a joint investigation that involved the London, Toronto and Waterloo police services.
Students at UPEI have let their student union know what they want from the province this fiscal year, and those priorities are reflected in a 2024-2025 advocacy document brought to the legislature on Wednesday.
Larger communities in the N.W.T. will soon see a boost in their territorial funding to maintain infrastructure and deliver services — like water and waste management — but the increase still falls short of what communities need.