"This is a hobby; make that clear, a hobby," says Jim Walczak of his annual Christmas cards, which he creates with a vintage printing press in his Williamstown studio. 

Jim Walczak works in his printing studio in Williamstown. For 50 years, he's been printing his own Christmas cards and sending them to family and friends. 

Jim Walczak applies ink to the press as he creates this year's Christmas card in his printing studio in Williamstown.

Antique metal letterpress type blocks set with a Christmas message in Jim Walczak's printing studio in Williamstown.

Antique metal letterpress type blocks, in the shape of snowflakes, are arranged for printing in Jim Walczak's printing studio in Williamstown.

The first Christmas card that Jim Walczak created doubled as a major announcement: "Merry Christmas, just drafted."

This Christmas card, printed in 1993, is one of Jim Walczak's favorite creations. 

"This is a hobby; make that clear, a hobby," says Jim Walczak of his annual Christmas cards, which he creates with a vintage printing press in his Williamstown studio. 

Jim Walczak works in his printing studio in Williamstown. For 50 years, he's been printing his own Christmas cards and sending them to family and friends. 

Jim Walczak applies ink to the press as he creates this year's Christmas card in his printing studio in Williamstown.

WILLIAMSTOWN — Jim Walczak's favorite Christmas card is the one he mailed in 1993. 

The cover features a chickadee clutching a sprig of evergreen in its talons. Open it up and inside you find the following passage penned by William Shakespeare:

This Christmas card, printed in 1993, is one of Jim Walczak's favorite creations. 

"One touch of nature makes the whole world kin."

Is it a card from Hallmark? American Greetings? Quilling based in Framingham?

Nope, it's a Walczak original.

For more than 50 years, the Washington D.C. transplant and Navy veteran has been using traditional type-set and printing presses to create holiday keepsakes worthy of being preserved in a family album.

Unlike the national brands, you won't find Walczak greeting cards for sale.

"This is a hobby; make that clear, a hobby," the widower said during an interview from his workshop attached to his Williamstown home.

The "inner satisfaction" Walczak says he gets from printing up his own Christmas cards dates back to the days growing up in Ellwood City, Penn., north of Pittsburgh. 

The youngest of 12 children — and the only surviving sibling — one of Walczak's brothers gave him a printing press and as a teenager in high school he worked at a printing business where he learned about making and setting type and the art of printing.

"I was always very creative with my hands. At seven I was doing model airplanes and bringing them to school," he said.

After high school, Walczak attended Penn State and graduated in 1955 with a degree in geology and mineralogy.

"I wanted to be a map maker as a kid, but no one knew where to send me, so I studied geology," he said. "You don't use [geology] but it's good knowledge to have so when you see a rock you know what you're looking at."

The first Christmas card that Jim Walczak created doubled as a major announcement: "Merry Christmas, just drafted."

After college, Walczak was drafted into the U.S. Navy and when his tour of duty was over, he returned to Ellwood.  Once home he took up his job again at the same print shop when he got a call from a Penn State alum telling him the Navy was looking for geologists to work in Washington D.C.

From 1958 until 1989, when Walczak retired, he began to take seriously printing and the making of Christmas cards. He had a studio built at his home Oxen Hill, Md. just outside D.C.  His first Christmas greeting to family and friends was actually in 1955 when the card announced to all he had been drafted.

In 1959, Walczak became a family man. He married Austrian native Franziska Molling who he had met in the central European country while on naval business after he was drafted.  The couple would end up having two daughters, a son and three grandchildren.

Daughter Diana Walczak and her husband, Jeff Kleiser are pioneers, in computer graphics working in the film industry. Together, they founded the Kleiser-Walczak Construction Company and Synthespian Studios. She is best known for creating the original Michael Jackson's HIStory Statue which she sculpted in 1994. 

Diana Walczak didn't fall far from the family tree of talent.

"I spent a lot of my childhood in [my father's] shop and I attribute a lot of my training to that," she said in a phone interview.

She noted how her father is a last of his kind. "He's keeping some of the history of printing going." 

Antique metal letterpress type blocks set with a Christmas message in Jim Walczak's printing studio in Williamstown.

Early on in his hobby, Walczak bought the type he used to make the cards, but that became costly so he decided to buy his own typesetting machines.

The quality of his work started to become well known and soon he branched out beyond holiday greeting cards.

"In the 1970s, everyone wanted business cards, so I began moonlighting making business cards," he noted.

By 2011, Jim and Franziska Walczak moved to Williamstown to live across the street from their daughter. Jim brought his entire print shop, equipment and supplies with them. Franziska Walczak died in November of 2019.

Antique metal letterpress type blocks, in the shape of snowflakes, are arranged for printing in Jim Walczak's printing studio in Williamstown.

During a recent visit to Walczak's studio, the 87-year-old was working on a card with silver-looking snowflakes against a dark blue background. Inside the card is a poem, "The Snow is Falling," that Diana wrote when she was 7-years-old.

"The snow is falling down / On the hills and house tops. /  Do you like the snow? / The snow is fun for everyone. / It's snowing, it's snowing /On you and me. / I like to make snowballs /And snowmen, you see.

Walczak practices numerous times to get the cover right, making sure it has enough color with no bare spots and that it is lined up straight on the card stock.

"It's going to get better and better as the years go by. I just need to do more cards," he said.

Dick Lindsay can be reached at rlindsay@berkshireeagle.com.

Jim Walczak has been creating Christmas cards for family and friends on his vintage letterpress presses for 50 years.

Richard Lindsay is a general assignment reporter for The Berkshire Eagle.

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