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Excellent Free Antique Scandinavian Christmas Cards To Print

Inside: A collection of Swedish Jenny Nystrom Christmas cards made for the Danish market; copy-right free and in the Public Domain.

Jenny Nystrom was a Swedish artist born in 1854. She was known as the woman who created the Scandinavian image of Christmas with her numerous Scandinavian Christmas cards and magazine covers. She gave Sweden the festive idea of Christmas gifts and the Christmas tree.

Jenny linked the Swedish version of Santa Claus to the gnomes of Scandinavian folklore. Many of her Christmas paintings featured Scandinavian gnomes and Santa Claus in his original green coat. Children also featured heavily as a subject of her beautiful and fun Christmas-painted scenes.

These antique Christmas cards also reflect the wintery scenes of Scandinavia with lots of deep snow!

The Danish for merry Christmas is “glædelig jul“, whereas in Swedish and Norwegian it is “God Jul“.

As well as Scandinavian Christmas cards, I love Scandinavian Christmas decorations; there is a great round-up of Scandinavian Christmas crafts on Pillarboxblue.

Free_vintage_scandinavian_Christmas_cards

The Vintage Danish Christmas Cards

Just click on the highlighted title to download the antique Scandinavian Christmas cards, and a pdf will download to your computer immediately.
 
 The PDF-downloaded vintage Scandinavian Christmas cards will be of a higher resolution than the images below.

1. Danish Christmas Elves 1913

This antique Christmas card was from the Norwegian National Library. However, the greeting on the card, “Glædelig Jul!” is the Danish for Merry Christmas.

The Norwegian is God Jul. So I presume that this was a Christmas card sent from someone in Denmark to someone in Norway. The Christmas elves on the front look Scandinavian, and maybe that’s a basket of “Danish” pastries they carry!

Free antique Christmas cards Scandinavian elves

2. Danish Boy Carrying Church – 1910

Another Christmas card with the Danish seasonal greeting, “Glædelig Jul!” translates as Merry Christmas. This time it is of a Danish boy holding a model of a Scandinavian Church.

Danish Vintage Christmas card 1910

3. Danish Children With Umbrella Card

A lovely vintage Scandinavian Christmas card painted somewhere in the early 1890s.

Scandinavian antique Christmas Card

4. Children Feeding Birds – 1920

This is a lovely winter scene, showing two children feeding the birds.

Vintage Scandinavian Christmas Cards

5. Santa Feeding A Goat

Not sure of the date of this Jenny Nystrom card. It shows Santa feeding a goat. Interestingly Santa is wearing a green coat and not red. Santa always used to wear green until the advertising executives of Coca-Cola gave him a red makeover.

Jenny Nystrom antique scandinavian Christmas card

6. Children Dancing Around the Christmas Tree

What a delightfully happy festive scene. Excited children dancing around the Christmas tree, painted in 1896. Note the flags on the Christmas tree; it is a tradition to decorate the tree with flags in Scandinavian countries.

Dancing around the Christmas tree vintage Christmas card

7. Children Spying on The Robins

Another delightful scene of children with birds, this time, they are spying on them! Including the Christmas card classic bird, the robin. The way the card is painted, it looks like a snow globe.

Scandinavian vintage Christmas card of children looking at robins

8. Original Green Santa

Another Scandinavian vintage Christmas card with a painting of Santa showing him in his original green coat. Before the Coca-Cola update to a red jacket in the 1930s!

Jenny_Nyström Green Santa Christmas postcard

9. Happy New Year Card -1914

This is a cheeky Christmas card showing a boy in traditional dress. He’s armed and dangerous ready for a serious snowball fight.

It is also a rare Jenny Nystrom card with a greeting written in English. Rather than one of the usual Scandinavian languages on her antique Christmas cards. Painted in 1914.

Antique Scandinavian Christmas Card

10. Gnome With Wheel Barrow

This Christmas card features a gnome hard at work. Scandinavian gnomes are one of the most familiar creatures in Scandinavian folklore; they are called “nisse” in Danish and Norwegian and “tomte” in Swedish.

Nisse is typically associated with winter and Christmas. They are generally short, with a long white beard and wearing a conical or knit cap in red or some other bright colour. They often have an appearance somewhat similar to that of a garden gnome.

Scandinavian gnomes have been a trendy theme for Christmas crafts and decorations over the last couple of years, and not just in Scandinavia.

Norwegian_Christmas_Card with gnome

11. Christmas Angel An Cherubs

A lovely card with a more religious feel as it features an angel and cherubs. This card is dated from 1913.

Glædelig_Jul,_Christmas_angel_1913

12. Snowman

This is a jolly Scandinavian card with a jolly snowman on the front. The Danish for snowman is “snemand”; the Swedish word is “snögubbe“. Whereas Norwegian is very similar to English, “snømann

Glædelig_Jul,Snow man1908

I think these lovely vintage Scandinavian Christmas cards would make a fabulous display at Christmas. You could print and frame them. Or, for something more rustic, transfer them onto wood slices for decoration.

However, I think they would make a gorgeous festive garland strung up like bunting. Or you could easily get these images printed onto your Christmas cards to send to your friends and relatives.

If you like this post, you may also like the free vintage maps of Northern Europe and maps of Norway to download.
 

Free_vintage_scandinavian_Christmas_cards_tree

There are more vintage Christmas cards with this collection of holly illustrations and drawings and Christmas botanical prints here.

These Christmas cards would be great for making Christmas ornaments like these personalized snow globes.

Other vintage card collections to check out are these Valentine postcards and cards.

Kim

Thursday 14th of December 2023

What a magnificent collection of images, truly amazing and the history and background you detail on each of them is wonderful to read. I like to paint and have already used three of the images for family Christmas cards it was great to be able to include a bit a about the artist on the card as a tribute to them so their work lives on 🙂, many thanks.

claire

Thursday 14th of December 2023

Thank you so much; it's lovely to hear you enjoyed the images.

cecelia

Saturday 11th of November 2023

I love your choices of vintage pictures. When I go to print them they are so too large for one sheet. Is there a way to resize the pictures for letter size paper? Thank you for your time and work to make these available to us.

claire

Sunday 12th of November 2023

You should have an option in your printer menu to select the option fit to page or similar (try advanced settings). If not, use an online software package such as Canva to resize them.

Jan

Friday 28th of October 2022

Thank you, thank you for providing these charming cards. I am of Scandinavian heritage & look forward to printing these off. I will use them strung with my garland at Christmas

claire

Friday 28th of October 2022

Thank you, I'm glad you like them. My husband's family are from Bergen in Norway, so we also love Scandinavian decorations.

Susie

Friday 3rd of December 2021

I love the way you took the time to describe, translate, and explain each image. Such a great selection, so much fun. Thank you for sharing with all of us. Blessings from Port Huron, Michigan.

claire

Monday 6th of December 2021

Aww, thank you so much. I don't just like looking at the old images but I also love to know where they originated from.

Pamela Perry

Thursday 24th of December 2020

thank you - lovely images - I'm putting together my January journal Pam

claire

Monday 28th of December 2020

Thank you, I'm glad you can find use for them.