Vintage Christmas Card Sale at Woodstock Museum

Friday, 23 October 2020 at 14:47

The Woodstock Museum will be selling vintage Christmas cards until November 22nd.

WOODSTOCK - Christmas has come early at the Woodstock Museum as they're holding a vintage Christmas card sale and an online exhibit.

Manager of Culture and Museum Curator Karen Houston says it's a good time to hold this event.

"It ties us back to some of our own history in the sense of being able to tell people we're thinking about them, and historically you would send your Christmas cards once a year to people, family from the old country and it was a way to say that you were thinking about them even though you couldn't see them. There's going to be a lot more people we can't see this Christmas. Hopefully we can, we're all hoping but in case that is not the way it works out we can at least we're say thinking about them by giving them a little Christmas card or something else to say they're in our thoughts and prayers and that's important."

Houston says the cards are in packs of 12 and they cost $15.00. Four reproductions festive designs will be featured from the Museum's collection between 1912 and 1945.

The virtual exhibit will be on the history of Christmas cards.

She says it's intriguing to look at how Christmas cards have evolved. She says in essence it's a form of mass media.

"So talking about the Penny Post and how the post office started and how we made it so anybody could send a letter or a post card, or a card and how it changed over time. What was on the cards and how they were utilized to now where we're sending digital cards, sure, but there's no physical entity of it. And so having a physical reminder to people that somebody is thinking of them, I think that's important but it has decreased over time."

The latest exhibition is one of the events that the Museum has held virtually this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The government has Houston says they continue to learn as they host the exhibitions online.

"It has been very difficult to do on the ground exhibits because they're very clear in the guidelines that you cannot have hands-on components. Everything has to walk and read and so that is slightly limiting, we like to have a little bit of interaction. Whereas when you're doing a virtual exhibit you can really highlight the photos and the information that you have and you can interact with people via Twitter or Facebook about what's ongoing or questions and even comments that they've got about the photos and artifacts that you have."

Houston adds they're now trying to utilize the online resource and do programming associated with it.

The vintage Christmas cards go on sale until November 22nd and the exhibit will run until the end of the year.