BS: Dearth of Xmas Cards with stagecoaches

Subject: BS: Dearth of Xmas Cards with stagecoaches
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 04 Dec 18 - 05:54 AM

You don't get stagecoaches on Christmas Cards anymore. And you have to search for ones with glitter.

One more sign of the world going to shit.

Subject: RE: BS: Dearth of Xmas Cards with stagecoaches
From: Senoufou
Date: 04 Dec 18 - 06:06 AM

I agree Big Al. I like ladies in crinolines with their hands in their furry muffs (and the first person to snigger at that will get a smacked bottom) accompanied by gentlemen in beaver hats and greatcoats. With carol singers in Dickensian attire carrying lanterns on poles.

Instead we seem to have blooming carrots and swedes.
The world has indeed gone to shit.

Subject: RE: BS: Dearth of Xmas Cards with stagecoaches
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 04 Dec 18 - 06:07 AM

In a certain light I can still find specks of glitter on my carpet and settee from last year's cards. Or from ten years ago, who knows. I wonder if you can carbon-date glitter. The hoover that's man enough to pick up every bit of glitter has yet to be invented.

Subject: RE: BS: Dearth of Xmas Cards with stagecoaches
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 04 Dec 18 - 06:09 AM

"I like ladies in crinolines with their hands in their furry muffs"

Blimey, I think I do as well. Is that legal on Christmas cards though?

Subject: RE: BS: Dearth of Xmas Cards with stagecoaches
From: Senoufou
Date: 04 Dec 18 - 06:11 AM

Are you asking for a smacked bottom Steve? :)

Subject: RE: BS: Dearth of Xmas Cards with stagecoaches
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 04 Dec 18 - 06:25 AM

There'll be certain conditions...

Subject: RE: BS: Dearth of Xmas Cards with stagecoaches
From: Jos
Date: 04 Dec 18 - 06:39 AM

I am amused by cards with carol singers outside a very English-looking church, with a crescent moon in the sky like a letter C - obviously they are carol singing just before dawn (or the moon would be facing the other way). Have they been out singing the whole night through?

Subject: RE: BS: Dearth of Xmas Cards with stagecoaches
From: Manitas_at_home
Date: 04 Dec 18 - 07:17 AM

When does the crescent switch from left to right?

Subject: RE: BS: Dearth of Xmas Cards with stagecoaches
From: Iains
Date: 04 Dec 18 - 07:28 AM

It is global warming. No stagecoaches, no snow. The little ice age has finished.

Subject: RE: BS: Dearth of Xmas Cards with stagecoaches
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 04 Dec 18 - 07:31 AM

Never mind crescents. Why are the stars all pointy?

Subject: RE: BS: Dearth of Xmas Cards with stagecoaches
From: Jos
Date: 04 Dec 18 - 08:10 AM

Paul, the moon's orbit is slightly slower than the sun's, so gradually, over about a month, the sun overtakes it. Early this morning the moon was a C shape as the sun was coming up slightly later, to the left of it and shining on what from our point of view is its left-hand side. Once the sun has overtaken the moon, passing roughly behind it, the sun will go down in the evening first, with the moon setting slightly later, and the sun will be shining up at it on what seems to us its right-hand edge. If the sun happens to pass exactly behind the moon when it overtakes, we get a solar eclipse.

I assume that for people in the southern hemisphere it will appear the other way round, which is why I stressed the English-looking church.

Subject: RE: BS: Dearth of Xmas Cards with stagecoaches
From: ChanteyLass
Date: 04 Dec 18 - 09:29 AM

Cards with glitter can't be recycled. I rip off the glittery part and recycle the rest. Same is true for most embellishments.when envelopes are lined with foil, I rip off the foil.

Subject: RE: BS: Dearth of Xmas Cards with stagecoaches
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 04 Dec 18 - 09:34 AM

Hadn't noticed any reduction in the glitter: as Steve says, it gets everywhere, as does tinsel. My husband has been making Christmas table arrangements with some of his plants.....and tinsel, so I am constantly cursing it.

Subject: RE: BS: Dearth of Xmas Cards with stagecoaches
From: Senoufou
Date: 04 Dec 18 - 10:05 AM

Personally I like a robin on a card, with perhaps a bit of holly.
Cheerful little bird, very festive.

When I was teaching, my pupils used to craze me for some glitter with which to decorate the Crimbo cards we made during Art lessons in December. It came in small tubes. The children daubed their efforts with glue then liberally sprinkled the glitter over it.

It got absolutely everywhere, even in their hair.
I did try to sweep it up from the floor, but of course loads was left.

The poor cleaners must have cursed me to hell.

Subject: RE: BS: Dearth of Xmas Cards with stagecoaches
From: Jos
Date: 04 Dec 18 - 11:08 AM

Wasn't there a campaign recently to ban glitter because it ends up in the sea and in fishes' stomachs?

Subject: RE: BS: Dearth of Xmas Cards with stagecoaches
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 04 Dec 18 - 11:38 AM

Years ago I found a card with Santa riding a horse through the West Texas desert that was quite appealing.

Subject: RE: BS: Dearth of Xmas Cards with stagecoaches
From: keberoxu
Date: 04 Dec 18 - 01:22 PM

In these United States, west of the Atlantic,
you might point the finger of blame at franchises like
Charles Schulz's comic strip "Peanuts"
with characters like Charlie Brown, Linus, and Snoopy the beagle.
Greeting cards in general, and Christmas cards in particular,
have been thoroughly invaded by products from that franchise;
I have purchased and sent some of them myself in my day.

So it's more like
the World War I flying ace, fighting the Red Baron,
which is to say Snoopy the beagle
with a dashing scarf and a pair of aviator goggles
on the roof of his doghouse,
making believe that he is flying a fighter plane.

Subject: RE: BS: Dearth of Xmas Cards with stagecoaches
From: JHW
Date: 04 Dec 18 - 01:51 PM

I try and wash off the glitter and the put the offending cards on the kitchen windowsill where it can readily be wiped up. Hadn't heard of a ban but look forward to it.
Stagecoaches no. United (bus brand) long distance motor coach in the snow on one of last years cards.

Subject: RE: BS: Dearth of Xmas Cards with stagecoaches
From: Senoufou
Date: 04 Dec 18 - 02:25 PM

A couple of months ago our village held an event where everyone sold their surplus stuff on their front drives.
We got rid of quite a bit of junk and made £55.
The items we were most glad to get rid of were several rolls of glittery Crimbo wrapping paper.
They were unopened and a lady was thrilled to buy them for a few bob.
I didn't point out that in December her house would be glittered from top to bottom.

Subject: RE: BS: Dearth of Xmas Cards with stagecoaches
From: Jack Campin
Date: 04 Dec 18 - 05:57 PM

I work for a charity that uses Christmas cards as a fundraiser.

We had one customer who came in two years running and asked, "I'm looking for a Christmas card which is actually about Jesus, surely you have one?". I don't think we did at that time, but she had a good point.

Subject: RE: BS: Dearth of Xmas Cards with stagecoaches
From: Senoufou
Date: 04 Dec 18 - 06:43 PM

Husband arrived home this evening from his school cleaning with two rather early Christmas cards from two of the teachers. One has a jolly golden retriever dog sitting in front of a roaring log fire, and the other is a chilly-looking snow scene with fir trees dotted about and a lemony yellow sunset.
As they say in Norfolk "Them caaards doon't pertickly appail ter me".
They've also spelt his name incorrectly in both cards. :(

Subject: RE: BS: Dearth of Xmas Cards with stagecoaches
From: JennieG
Date: 04 Dec 18 - 10:56 PM

We can buy cards in Oz with Santa on a surfboard or playing cricket on the beach, far more appropriate in our summer heat than snowmen and robins.

On our recent trip to Canada some folk expressed surprise about our hot weather Christmas, but as we pointed out to them - it's what we have always known. For many people in the world (not just in Oz) Christmas is in the middle of summer.

Subject: RE: BS: Dearth of Xmas Cards with stagecoaches
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 05 Dec 18 - 01:05 AM

Well, since it isn't actually about Jesus, it's about all of the stuff from lots of cultures and religions that were appropriated and bundled together at this time of year, then just about anything goes, including glittering stagecoaches.

Subject: RE: BS: Dearth of Xmas Cards with stagecoaches
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 05 Dec 18 - 03:26 AM

Well my scholarly research :-) reveals that Jesus was far more likely to have born at the end of September. Extrapolating backwards, that suggests that the actual shag (real or metaphorical) that led to his conception took place - whaddya know! - in late December. It's been said that Christmas is really a pagan celebration in origin. If I were a pagan (I'm not - I'm a heathen) I'd love the idea that a good bit of rumpy-pumpy was in the mix. Can we have a bit of that on our Christmas cards, please?! You could always obscure the naughty bits with glitter...

Subject: RE: BS: Dearth of Xmas Cards with stagecoaches
From: Jack Campin
Date: 05 Dec 18 - 04:08 AM

Mediæval artists did depict that - except that the mechanism was the Archangel Gabriel shooting a star into Mary's ear. Generations of girls must have gone to bed wearing earplugs.

Subject: RE: BS: Dearth of Xmas Cards with stagecoaches
From: Senoufou
Date: 05 Dec 18 - 04:09 AM

I reckon the short, dark days in December and the increasing cold make us seek cheerful colours and jolly themes for Crimbo cards. That's why Father Christmas is dressed in red, and the decorations are bright, heartening green with shiny gold/silver bits and bobs.
It's Saturnalia and Yule rolled into one. As Steve says, originally a pagan feast.
So anything bright and cheerful, warm and heartening is what we respond to.
Oh Lord JennieG, what wouldn't I give to be in Oz in the sunshine on a sandy beach (Bondi perhaps) at this very moment? I might even put on my swimsuit and have a nice swim. When can we get a flight? Fire up the barbie, we're arriving in two days'time!

Subject: RE: BS: Dearth of Xmas Cards with stagecoaches
From: Jos
Date: 05 Dec 18 - 05:00 AM

Is it true or a recent fallacy that Father Christmas has only been dressed in red since being depicted that way in a Coca-Cola advertisement?
If so, he was American and probably called 'Santa' rather than 'Farther Christmas', as if being unaware that Santa means Saint (and yes, I do know it comes from Saint Nicholas, or maybe Saint Peter for people whose ancestors were from a different bit of Europe).

I do like a nice dark green Father Christmas, myself.

Subject: RE: BS: Dearth of Xmas Cards with stagecoaches
From: Jack Campin
Date: 05 Dec 18 - 05:26 AM

Coca-Cola popularized the image, but I've seen St Nicholas depicted in the same outfit in a fresco in a cave church in the Ihlara Valley in Cappadocia - except his hat was black. The picture must predate the Seljuk invasion of the 11th century,

Subject: RE: BS: Dearth of Xmas Cards with stagecoaches
From: KarenH
Date: 05 Dec 18 - 08:14 AM

On glitter, do try to get some that is environment friendly

https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/glitter-ban-environment-microbead-impact-microplastics-scientists-warning-deep-ocean-a8056196.html

Subject: RE: BS: Dearth of Xmas Cards with stagecoaches
From: Jos
Date: 05 Dec 18 - 08:30 AM

Thank you Jack. Though I suspect that the Coca-Cola designer may not have been aware of the cave church fresco.

There is still a lot of confusion. I doubt if Saint Nicholas had any reindeer, and doesn't Saint Peter (or is it just Peter) come with a black horse?

Yesterday I saw a Christmas tree decoration depicting what I took to be Father Christmas (pink face, red hood, white beard) but with a red nose. Perhaps it was a result of Father Christmas senior getting a bit too friendly with one of the Rudolph's sisters.

Subject: RE: BS: Dearth of Xmas Cards with stagecoaches
From: Senoufou
Date: 05 Dec 18 - 09:42 AM

I've been trying to remember and I can't think we ever saw Coca Cola around in the early fifties. I expect it was available in England, but just after the War we only had Tizer where we lived.

I also can't remember ever saying 'Santa Claus'. It was always 'Father Christmas'.

I've chosen Christmas cards this year which are those lovely cut-out lacy designs, very intricate. They look like icy fronds of twigs.
A bit expensive, but I hope my friends/neighbours/family will like them.

My sister always sends a rude card, for instance, Mary and Joseph gazing at the baby Jesus and Joseph is saying, "Let's call him Wayne!"
Or a very cross turkey saying, "Stuff it up your own arse!"

---

Duplicate removed. ---mudelf

Subject: RE: BS: Dearth of Xmas Cards with stagecoaches
From: Charmion
Date: 05 Dec 18 - 10:40 AM

We're just lucky, I guess, Eliza.

I can't remember when I last bothered to send Christmas cards. My mother used to spend hours shopping for them and writing them, and would send me out with a fistful in the week before Christmas to deliver them by hand to people who lived within walking distance of our front door. (Her idea of walking distance was not restrictive; I remember spending whole afternoons hiking around in the freezing dusk.) But sometime in the early '80s the whole idea started to feel like Too Much Trouble; also, my friends kept moving, as did I, and we couldn't keep track of each other.

Now the primary function of a Christmas card is to contain the cheque or gift card presented to a niece or nephew whose needs and wants are completely mysterious to us. Those cards must be amusing. Gift cards for adults (never cheques) go in cards with a religious theme, if they are for Himself's sisters, or funny if they are for my brothers. Cards with New Yorker cartoons on them work well.

Stagecoaches and robins are cute and nostalgic, but too British for us Canadians, even though quite a few of the kin-group are immigrants from Wales.

Subject: RE: BS: Dearth of Xmas Cards with stagecoaches
From: Senoufou
Date: 05 Dec 18 - 01:10 PM

My husband loves going round the village with a small bag delivering all our cards. When people see him coming they buttonhole him for a lovely chat/make him a nice cup of tea and he comes home ages later smiling his head off (and dying for a wee, being full of tea!).

There are three people, one of my nieces and two of my long-distance friends, who are Blooming Nuisances, being born in December. How dared they?! Their birthday cards have butterfly stickers on the envelopes so that I don't get them mixed-up with their Christmas cards, which have Crimbo stickers on the front.
Husband does all his colleagues and many of the teaching staff a card. He loves the Crimbo stickers too. We get a few sheets on line every year. Couple of babies really!

Subject: RE: BS: Dearth of Xmas Cards with stagecoaches
From: JHW
Date: 05 Dec 18 - 03:03 PM

Dearth of Stagecoaches on thread about dearth of Xmas Cards with stagecoaches?

Subject: RE: BS: Dearth of Xmas Cards with stagecoaches
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 05 Dec 18 - 05:33 PM

I bought some cards last year after Christmas for half price, so maybe I ought to send some out this year. (Especially to the aunts and uncles who are getting way up there in age.)

I found ONE box (18 cards) with Santa in a T-Series MG. Now I have to figure out which 17 friends (keeping one for myself!) will appreciate this card.

Don't recall any stagecoaches.

Linn

Subject: RE: BS: Dearth of Xmas Cards with stagecoaches
From: leeneia
Date: 06 Dec 18 - 01:49 PM

I just looked at Christmas cards on Amazon. They have kids on sleds, 1930's pick-up trucks with fat fenders, and sleighs, but no stagecoaches.

What is wrong with people?

:)

Subject: RE: BS: Dearth of Xmas Cards with stagecoaches
From: Senoufou
Date: 06 Dec 18 - 02:29 PM

There's a lovely pop-up 3D card on Amazon UK of a jolly stagecoach in the snow, but it costs £2-99. Rather expensive for a single card!

Subject: RE: BS: Dearth of Xmas Cards with stagecoaches
From: Jos
Date: 06 Dec 18 - 02:52 PM

We drank Tizer in the 1950s and it was much nicer than it is nowadays, but I don't know when Coca-Cola appeared. It was certainly around in the early 1960s, along with Pepsi, and people doing blind tastings to see if they could tell the difference - oh, and Cuba Libres (aka rum 'n' coke).

Subject: RE: BS: Dearth of Xmas Cards with stagecoaches
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 06 Dec 18 - 03:21 PM

The moon depicted as a C shape.
Sounds right to me if you read Hardy and the Christmas Eve night into Christmas Day morning all night carol singing, on their rambles from house to house.

Robin

Subject: RE: BS: Dearth of Xmas Cards with stagecoaches
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 06 Dec 18 - 03:35 PM

I find nice cards every year at Tuesday Morning.

Subject: RE: BS: Dearth of Xmas Cards with stagecoaches
From: Jos
Date: 06 Dec 18 - 04:25 PM

Robin,
Is that in one of his books, or somewhere else?

Subject: RE: BS: Dearth of Xmas Cards with stagecoaches
From: Senoufou
Date: 06 Dec 18 - 05:56 PM

'Under The Greenwood Tree'. The Melstock quire sets off at the stroke of midnight to sing carols all around the village.

Subject: RE: BS: Dearth of Xmas Cards with stagecoaches
From: JennieG
Date: 06 Dec 18 - 07:45 PM

Santa Claus has always been 'Santa Claus' - or just plain Santy - in Oz, 'Father Christmas' was for the posh folk on the other side of the world.

Santy in Oz......

Subject: RE: BS: Dearth of Xmas Cards with stagecoaches
From: leeneia
Date: 07 Dec 18 - 01:08 AM

Cute! I especially like the pic of Santa and the newborn baby. Thanks Jennie.

Subject: RE: BS: Dearth of Xmas Cards with stagecoaches
From: Senoufou
Date: 07 Dec 18 - 04:16 AM

We know a lovely gay couple, and every year they send us an 'e card'. It's always by Jackie Lawson (I think one has to pay a small amount to use the service).
It's always beautiful, Jackie paints and designs the animated card herself. This time it was an exquisite robin (yay!) bringing bits of twigs, fruits and foliage to create a delightful arrangement in a bowl, while Christmas music plays. At the end, our friends' message appears, and a box where one can reply.
We're very fond of the two men and are hoping they might get married next year (If we're invited, I'll have to buy a posh frock and a hat!)

Subject: RE: BS: Dearth of Xmas Cards with stagecoaches
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 07 Dec 18 - 09:52 AM

Well I think its unfair of us who like stagecoaches. Its not like the stagecoaches will get stuck in fishes stomachs.

Subject: RE: BS: Dearth of Xmas Cards with stagecoaches
From: keberoxu
Date: 07 Dec 18 - 03:28 PM

it's the one-horse open sleigh we ought to worry about.

Subject: RE: BS: Dearth of Xmas Cards with stagecoaches
From: Jack Campin
Date: 07 Dec 18 - 04:37 PM

I liked "Father Noel" in Istanbul - a motorized half-sized Santa except his outfit was green. And he was playing a sax.

Subject: RE: BS: Dearth of Xmas Cards with stagecoaches
From: The Sandman
Date: 07 Dec 18 - 08:23 PM

Subject: RE: BS: Dearth of Xmas Cards with stagecoaches
From: Senoufou - PM
Date: 04 Dec 18 - 06:43 PM

Husband arrived home this evening from his school cleaning with two rather early Christmas cards from two of the teachers"
Is your husband still at school or is he home schooled

Subject: RE: BS: Dearth of Xmas Cards with stagecoaches
From: BobL
Date: 08 Dec 18 - 03:27 AM

What, to get back to the OP's question, do stagecoaches have to do with Xmas anyway? Snow scenes might be relevant to the Winter Solstice but why the Victorian era in particular?