The Ghost of Christmas Graphics Past
December 20th, 2010 by Benj Edwards
I’ve been collecting vintage Christmas GIF files for a while now, and I finally decided to put some of the best ones from the 256-color PC era together in a slideshow. You can check it out over at PCmag.com.
Please disregard the “Christmas Card” stuff they inserted in the title and introduction — I’m not sure why they did that. The images have nothing to do with Christmas cards (those paper things you mail to people). I guess it’s hard to concisely describe to the general public what exactly these images are and why someone would want to look at them. Also, the captions are to the upper right of each image. Hope you enjoy it. Merry Christmas.
Update (12/21/2010): I just posted a bunch of animated Christmas GIFs, including those featured in this slideshow.
December 20th, 2010 at 12:38 pm
It’s called “The Ghost of Christmas Card Graphics Past” because all the pictures are inspired by Christmas. It’s a time when Christians celebrate Christ’s birth. They decorate Christmas trees, houses, etc and that’s what you can see there. Why would you want to disregard that?
December 20th, 2010 at 1:12 pm
Are you assuming that I spent years collecting Christmas images to publish in a Christmas-themed slideshow which I then promote on my own blog as “The Ghost of Christmas Graphics Past”…and yet I don’t want to refer to the holiday as “Christmas”? That is silly. I was talking about the “card” part of the title — those images have nothing to do with Christmas cards (those paper things you mail to people), but yes, they have everything to do with Christmas. I’ve updated the post to hopefully clear up any confusion on that point.
My original title for the slideshow was “The Ghost of Christmas Graphics Past.”
December 20th, 2010 at 2:09 pm
Perhaps they meant to call it Graphics Card instead of card graphics? That would make more sense contextually.
December 20th, 2010 at 7:35 pm
Number 7 looks a lot like a Thomas Kinkade painting, but, while there are similar ones, it doesn’t quite match.
December 20th, 2010 at 8:17 pm
Love it, love it, love it! Merry Christmas!
December 21st, 2010 at 12:29 am
i just love 256 colors 320×256…. computers were much simple back then. don’t have to worry about how many cores, GPUs, DDR speeds, weird looking mouses and keyboards, very flat and big monitors… just need to worry about the gameplay. although i dont celebrate christmas, but i like the slideshow!
December 21st, 2010 at 1:27 am
Merry Christmas Benj! Thanks for maintaining such a fun blog (and for all those great slideshows).
December 21st, 2010 at 2:25 am
Silly question, but why do you explain the animation of the gifs but not actually show them?
December 21st, 2010 at 8:42 am
That’s not a silly question, mkny9800n. I would have loved to show the animations but it was beyond the technical capabilities of PCMag’s slideshow system. To put it simply, the images must be in JPEG format, which don’t support animation. I could put up the animated GIFs on here though. Hmm.
And thanks, DNA. I’m glad you like my slideshows!
December 21st, 2010 at 2:46 pm
@Benj Edwards
Indeed. It would be silly 🙂 Sorry for the confusion. I just found political correctness extremely annoying in relation to Christmas. Even if I don’t consider myself as a Christian. Anyway thx for another interesting post!