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The History of Cardboard Christmas Houses:
 Welcome to Cardboard Christmas Past!
Christmas villages in one shape or another have been around for centuries. But cardboard Christmas houses have only been around 130 years or so. And cardboard Christmas houses made to glow from electric light bulbs have only been around since about 1928, when electric light strands, became affordable for the average family. 
Since that time, an amazing variety of examples occurred. Interrupted by World War II, but revived soon after, America’s love of these little houses and the communities they created eventually waned, when other interests, like television, consumed the time that families used to spend setting up, and rearranging (putzing around) with the little houses and accessories.
Thankfully, a few collectors have seen value in protecting, cataloging, and researching cardboard Christmas houses before all the examples disappeared or fell apart from neglect. Collector and self-taught historian Ted Althof has stored as much history as he could find on his “Papa Ted’s Place” web site, which has also become a sort of clearing-house for information that others could share as well. Thanks to Ted and his contributors, we actually know far more about these little houses than most families who set them out when they were new. We include several direct links to pages on Ted’s site in the list below.
History pages you should find useful include:
We will be adding other pages as time permits, but these should give you a very solid background as you start collecting or building your own cardboard Christmas houses.
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