The Victorians' weird Christmas cards

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Victorian Christmas card with a sad dogImage source, Getty Images
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Now, we don't know about you, but we're pretty excited about Christmas but the dog on this card from around 1860 looks so gloomy! Have you ever seen a Christmas card with a sadder face on it?

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This is a very nice picture, but what do sunflowers and tennis have to do with Christmas? Usually, we're curled up in front of the fire playing board games in winter. Not hitting a tennis ball about or picking flowers.

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We wonder, did robins in Victorians times wear dresses, push prams and smoke pipes? Apparently they did, according to this card from 1870.

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A bit like we're struggling to see what tennis and sunflowers have to do with Christmas, we definitely can't work out what a mouse riding a lobster has to do with the festive season. But the Victorians seemed to think this was a suitable Christmas scene, according to this card from around 1880.

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We have no idea why the Victorians thought this was a nice picture to send on a Christmas card. We hope the robin is just sleeping...!

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This Christmas card appears to show a monkey doing a painting of a dog. Now, we don't know about you, but this isn't something that happens at Newsround HQ at Christmas, but perhaps we're missing something.

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When it snows at Christmas, we love nothing more than building happy snowmen in our gardens. These Victorian snowmen look a little bit creepy though, to say the least, and they certainly don't all look happy that it's Christmas.

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Well at least this card is a bit more cheery. Although, when we think of Christmas, we don't usually think of a frog dancing with a beetle. The Victorians thought of some funny things!