Sunday, April 12, 2020

Vintage Easter greetings

Welcome!
Vintage Easter card
Posted to Pinterest by Riptheskull 

Easter
What a wonderful time,
a wonderful reminder of God’s love for us.
Somewhere we got caught up in
the Easter bunny and
baby farm animals with cute bonnets.


We decorate eggs, 
but have forgotten why.

Think.Make.Share

I thought I would share some 
vintage Easter cards with you today.
But no Easter bunnies!
Well, maybe just 1 or 2.

 Litlebirdieblessings.blogspot.com

An 1881 Easter card




Our Victorian ancestors did have their own
sense of humor, which carried over to
their Easter cards as well.
I didn’t want you to think they were
all Pious Puritans!
Here are a few sillies:


Yes, you saw that correctly.
A chick smoking a cigarette,
dressed as a sharp dandy,
standing on some colored Easter eggs.
I have no idea...

And then there’s the gnome riding a chicken...
just screams Happy Easter
don’t you think?
Oh! I mean Merry Easter!

One more vintage silly:
Chicks practicing for...
the Circus?
At Easter?
An Easter Circus!
Right-o...

So why do we celebrate Easter?
Why send cards, and dye eggs?
Why have a special meal?
Why dress fancy and go to church?
I think you may know that the date of Easter is from the Middle Ages when the Catholic Church wanted people to stop celebrating their pagan holidays.
So the Church took some major pagan festival days and turned them into religious days instead.

The people still got to party,
although for different reasons,
and the Church was pleased with 
no more immoral pagan celebrations.

Uploaded to Pinterest by Greta Brinkley

The big Spring Party
celebrated new life and fertility.
Things usually got a bit frisky.
The Church was not amused.

Jesus tells us in the New Testament
that unless you are born again (spiritually)
you cannot enter the kingdom of God.
Hard theology for illiterate peasants to get.

Being born again is New Life, right?
So it was a logical time of year to
change the fertility aspect to 
a New Life in Christ.
Easter!


Rabbits are very prolific in birthing babies.
It was a natural to celebrate the rabbit
as part of the fertility holiday.
This is where we get our Easter Bunny.
(Some things just won’t die, 
no matter what the ruling Church wants.)
American Collectibles posted on Pinterest

Eggs were traditionally seen as 
a symbol of fertility and new life.
It was an established rite of Spring 
to color eggs and give them as gifts.

Ukrainian market

The Church accepted eggs as a symbol of new life,
and often colored them red to symbolize
the cleansing, life-giving blood of Christ.
So they allowed eggs to be part of their new holiday -
Easter.

Hand dyed Psyanky eggs by
PsyankyByTMelnyk, Etsy  


A few more vintage Easter cards:
 Antique Easter card

HubPages 

You can read all about the Easter story
in the Bible, in the last half
(The New Testament),
in the first few books/letters by
Matthew, Mark, Luke or John


That’s it for today!
Just a little synopsis really.
I hope your curiosity has been stirred,
and you pursue further the Miraculous Story.
Or re-read it again.

Thank you to all those artists from long ago
who shared their Easter visions with us.

‘Til next time,
inkspired


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