Victorian Santa with Children Vintage Christmas Greeting Card

Santa's enormous face, glassy-eyed and grinning, occupies roughly half the card's real estate — a monument to holiday excess that dominates the composition. Below this oversized countenance, he clutches an absolutely unhinged armful of dolls spilling across his red coat like he's robbing a toy factory and couldn't find a bag. The dolls — ranging from a curly-haired blonde to several others in various states of limp surrender — have the vacant, thousand-yard stare of tiny figures who have accepted their fate. 'Christmas Wishes' is stamped in gold in the upper right, because apparently John Winsch (copyright 1913, he wants you to know) looked at this fever dream of a man drowning in limp doll bodies and thought: yes, this is the one, this captures the spirit of the season.