Victorian Santa with Tiny Elf - Vintage Holly Merry Christmas Card

Santa's eyes—dark and penetrating within his oval portrait frame—gaze directly outward with an unsettling intensity as he cradles a tiny jester-elf puppet on a stick with the tender focus of a man who has made some deeply personal choices about his hobbies. Positioned like he's the world's jolliest Victorian dignitary, his expression says 'I have seen things in the workshop that would destroy you.' The entire scene is aggressively festooned with holly and berries—truly an unhinged amount of holly—as if the artist was paid by the leaf, and the pink badge at the bottom reads 'A Merry Christmas' in a font that suggests the printer was also unsettled by the puppet.