The History of the Christmas Card

The greetings we find on Christmas cards today were used since ancient times, maybe not in card form but certainly with the same intentions. This was carried out since isolated villages sent greetings to one another. In Pagan Britain greetings came in the form of good luck charms but were given out at winter solstice. The Christmas card is a tradition that most of us enjoy and participate in each year without knowing who invented the Christmas card or how it got its start.

The greeting card was started in the fourteenth century but not written on paper. It was printed on a wooden block in Germany but given as a New Years greeting. It pretty well stayed that way until the Fifteenth century. At that time the German people would exchange New Years presents which were called Andachtsbilder. These cards were usually given with greetings and a devotional picture for the home. These pictures were printed on paper. There was always a picture of the Christ Child engraved on the card and the words “ein gut selig jar” which meant a good and blessed year. Isn’t that the message that we send out today?

Even though the first card was made and used in Germany ,traces of the first cards known to be made in English writing was in the eighteenth century. It is thought they were made by school children, who wrote poems and letters to their families, which were decorated on the edges. These were done with the best writing the children could manage so that the parents would know just how much they had learned over the year. By 1820 this type of card had evolved to colored paper and envelopes.

The greeting cards that we know today were started in December 1843 and the man who started them was Sir Henry Cole. This man would give his friends and neighbors papers with writing and decorations of Christmas themes on them. This did not satisfy Sir Henry so he had a Christmas card made that had one greeting and could be sent to everyone.
The first card that was produced had the simple greetings of “Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you”; this is what we enjoy on our cards today except that the words are embellished upon to make cards more personable.

The cards were lovely and everyone loved them but for the poorer class they were out of reach. They sold for a shilling which was equivalent to a week’s wages for most people. There are twelve of these cards that are still with us today. Can you imagine taking one of those cards in your hands; it would be like walking back in time.

In 1844 there was another card to come to the market with illustrations of Christmas. This card was brought to the market by W.C.T. Dobson. With this, the popularity of Christmas card was on its way to becoming a true tradition of the season. In 1848 W.M. Edgley introduced a card to the market which was framed out of wood and ivy; this in a way was the first introduction of holly on a Christmas card. The greetings remained the same except for the archaic word “Christmass.”

In 1850 the Christmas card became more popular due to the people that were moving from smaller villages to larger cities and this was one way of keeping in touch but in 1870 a big change came not due to the Christmas card itself but due to the postal service. They made the price of posting cards cheaper and with this there was an affordable way of keeping in touch with families.

The card grew from there to what we know as the Christmas card today, it carries the same message that was sent in ancient times but much more variety and much more elaborate. The need for Christmas cards have declined in the past few years due to the easy access of communication but there are still some die hard among us that religiously send out Christmas card Greetings every year. It’s a tradition that I hope never fades away.