Victorian Christmas Card with Angels and Baby Jesus Nativity Scene

The three cherub-faced angel children seem convinced they've just witnessed something earth-shattering, hovering over a manger with clasped hands and gazes fixed downward at a glowing, halo'd infant who is — and this cannot be stressed enough — absolutely thriving and making direct eye contact with you, the viewer, like he already knows something you don't. The star of Bethlehem shoots a dramatic laser beam of divine light from the upper left corner, because subtlety was simply not on the menu in Victorian Christmas card design. Two of the angels appear to have just gotten away with something, their serene, slightly unsettling smiles suggesting secret knowledge, while the third stares with what can only be described as reverent intensity — or the face you make when you realize you forgot to bring a gift. 'A Merry Christmas,' says the card, with the cheerful confidence of people who saw absolutely nothing weird about mass-producing images of children gathered around a glowing baby in a barn.