Greeting Cards

This Christmas message draws a direct connection between a medieval knight on horseback and the lowly soldier of the Second World War.

The 134th Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force, was raised by Toronto's 48th Highlanders. It never saw action as a unit but was broken up to provide reinforcements to other battalions.

This card used by a sailor in the Royal Canadian Naval Volunteer Reserve gives a jaunty impression of life at sea.

The Beacon Hill, a frigate built in Esquimalt, British Columbia, went into service in May 1944. She served on convoy and escort work in the North Atlantic for the rest of the war, and was eventually paid off in 1967.

Captain George Hipel of the Highland Light Infantry of Canada sent two very different Christmas cards home: a hurriedly printed black and white card in 1944, when the unit was still fighting; and an impressive colour card in 1945, when the unit was back in England.

Stylish Christmas cards with embossed crests and photographs, like these made for members of the Royal Canadian Air Force, were widely available during the Second World War.

These are typical examples of crested Christmas cards that were sold to Canadian servicemen and women both abroad and in Canada during the Second World War.

John Gillespie Magee's beloved poem was used for the 1942 Christmas card of the RCAF's overseas headquarters in London.

Probably produced in the 1930s, this card used a First World War image, A. Sherriff Scott's drawing of men of the 42nd Battalion CEF in the trenches near Lens at Christmas 1917.

Early in the First World War, Ontario Premier Sir William Hearst sent this card to the province's soldiers overseas.