DragonsFaeriesElves&theUnseen : History of the Christmas Card-

Thursday, December 25, 2014

History of the Christmas Card-

Vintage Christmas Card

The History of the Christmas card, was basically to create a card in the traditional celebration of Christmas. What this means? Is to convey holiday sentiments into a card between people with a wide range of Christmas traditions.
These Traditions that are generally designed in the Christmas Theme did have a history and a beginning .. The tricky part is finding the beginning of the History of the Christmas Card.
As for the history of what has been put on these Christmas cards it is generally commercial designed for the occasion.. Which means you can have many different depictions of the Nativity theme of Jesus, or have Christian symbols such as the Star of Bethlehem, The 3 wise Men or a White Dove. There is also the cards that represents both the Holy Spirit and Peace too. There are other Christmas cards, through the history that show traditions, of seasonal figures - such as Santa Claus, snowmen, reindeer, Christmas trees, Christmas Ornaments, Snowy landscapes, and the list goes on.. There are objects associated with Christmas such as candles, holly, caroling, shopping, partying, snow falling wildlife of the northern winter, Some secular cards that depict nostalgic scenes of the past - such as the 19th century street-scapes and shoppers, old Christmas trees and children; others might be humorous, particularly in depicting the antics of Santa and his elves.
Now that we know all about what we put on the cards, I thought I would go into when the earliest Christmas Cards/Greeting Cards appeared as we all now it.. It would seem that it was in the 15th century with the first greeting were that of New Year's and Valentines
Although the first Christmas cards as we know them today appeared in the 1800s, the idea wasn’t fabricated from thin air, but was based on some other, older practices. The predecessors to the Christmas card, such as St. Valentine's cards and Christmas letters, paved the way for this newer tradition.

Vintage Christmas Card
the shiny parts of the card are not
Glitter but actually real
silver in those days

The first greeting cards were New Year’s cards and Valentines, which were established in the 15^th century. New Year’s cards were often printed from wood-blocks and for some time sending them remained primarily a custom between businesses and customers. By the late 1700s, the general public would join into the practice.

The sending of St. Valentine’s cards became a publicly practiced tradition much sooner. First appearing in the 1400s, by the mid-1500s they had become popular. People typically made their own Valentines, writing their own verses or copying from books of verse and decorating cards with their own drawings or bits of ribbon and lace. The first manufactured Valentines appeared around the year 1800 and the popularity of these cards would pave the way for the widespread custom of sending Christmas cards.

At Christmastime, many people would send letters to friends and family far away, and children at boarding school would decorate paper and write letters to show off the writing skills they’d improved upon that term at school. However, the first official Christmas card was created in 1843 in Britain.

Sir Henry Cole and the first Christmas
First of 1,000 copies of the first
commercial Christmas card

Sir Henry Cole, director of London's Victoria and Albert Museum, would write letters to family and acquaintances at Christmastime. He and others could buy decorative paper on which to pen greetings and good wishes, but he found it to be a cumbersome task. So Cole commissioned an artist friend, John Calcott Horsley to create a card with a simple message Horsley lithographed and hand-colored 1,000 copies of this first commercial card. It was a three-panel card – the center panel showed a family celebrating and the two wing panels depicted people feeding the hungry and clothing the naked. The card bore the simple greeting, “A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to You,” which would become the standard sentiment of the mass-produced Christmas cards. After the mass-production of X-Mas Cards, there were quite elaborate and though the lithograph printing process helped in producing cards, they first became popular among the upper-class in England. However, the development and improvement of the postal system, making sending cards more affordable, was a big part of the rise in the popularity of Christmas cards. Early cards were not necessarily religious Christmas cards but favored images such as beautiful flowers, birds, scenery and other pretty things.
that could be duplicated and sent to all his acquaintances.

Vintage Christmas Card

In 1875 Louis Prang brought the commercial Christmas card to the United States. Prang, a German lithographer, had developed a new innovative way of printing that made the process of creating Christmas and other cards much simpler and more affordable. Like British Christmas cards, Prang’s cards included various images that were simply pretty and tasteful, not truly having much to do with Christmas or even necessarily winter. However, some cards did include holly, snow and some other wintery or Christmas images. His cards became extremely popular in the U.S.; his company printed almost five million cards a year by 1881.

However, Prang’s cards were of exceptional quality and used quality materials, causing the cards to be somewhat pricey. As America became infatuated with sending Christmas cards, other companies began to flood the market with cheaper imitations, inspired by the Prang cards. By 1890, Prang was driven out of the market completely and his card-manufacturing company closed.
Christmas Cards of Today-

Modern day Christmas Card

It seems that the advent of the postcard was the turning point, when elaborate Victorian-era Christmas cards started to fade away in preference of a simpler Christmas card. The postcards were cheaper and alot easier to send at the time. However, as the times of the 1920's, cards with envelopes started to grow in popularity once again. Yet, even today the Christmas cards today are printed much more simpler than back in the day, no edged with lace or ribbon on the cards like before.
Then the sending to a physical Christmas card has declined even more because of the widespread use of the Internet of email through people personal laptops. Many people later
started sending E-Greeting Cards or E-Cards, which are basically electronic Internet cards. Now some of this E-Cards would have music and animation within the via email. Which many people now choose to send instead of the real Christmas Cards, with close to 2-billion Christmas cards are still being sent each year in the United States alone. The Nostalgic,
Sentimental and Religious type of images have continued in popularity even into the 21st century with some being reproductions of the ancient Victorian and Edwardian Christmas cards, which it seems that are still easy to obtain these days.
The Modern Christmas Cards can be bought individually, however they are also sold in packs of the same or varied designs. In recent decades the changes in technology may be the huge

Email Image of a Christmas Card Modern time
Christmas Card in the 21th Century

responsible and decline of the Christmas Card! Sadly it is estimated the number of cards that
are received by American households are dropping from 29% in 1987 to 20% in the year 2004.
It seems that Emails and telephones, IPhone allow for more frequent contact and are much more easier for the general use, then the ones who were raised without hand writing skills for letter writing. Especially given the availability of websites now offering FREE email Christmas E-Cards. However, even with the decline, over 1.9 billion cards of all kinds were sent in the U.S in 2005 alone. It seems that in the UK, Christmas Cards account for almost half of the volume of greeting card sales, with about over 668.9 million Christmas cards sold in the 2008 festive period. In most non-religious countries like that of Czech Republic, the Christmas card are rather called more like New Year Cards, however they are sent before the Christmas holiday and the emphasis is mostly given to the New Year - omitting any religious symbols in these cards.
As the Christmas season comes many businesses, from the small local to the multi-national

Merry Christmas Email Card

Enterprises send Christmas cards to their employee's as a way to develop a general goodwill and to reinforce social networks. There is also organizations that produce special Christmas cards as a fundraising tool too! The most famous of these enterprises is probably the UNICEF Christmas card program, launched in 1949, which selects artwork from internationally known artists for card reproductions. The UK-based Charities Advisory Trust gives out an annual "Scrooge Award" to the cards that return the smallest percentage to the charities they claim to support although it is not universally well received by the Christmas card producers.

There are many countries will produce official Christmas stamps, just for the holiday season, which may be brightly colored and depict some aspect of the Christmas tradition or a Nativity scene. Small Decorative stickers are also made to seal the back of envelopes, typically showing a trinket of some symbol of Christmas. It seems that is 2004 the German post office gave away 20 million free scented stickers to make Christmas cards smell of a fir Christmas tree, Cinnamon, gingerbread, a honey-wax candle , a baked apple and finally an orange. So

if you think about it the History of the Christmas Card has come a long way...

I hope that you Enjoyed the post and the history.