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A
Christmas card, also known as a holiday card in the United States, is a greeting
card sent as part of the traditional celebration of Christmas in order to convey
between people a range of sentiments related to the Christmas season. Christmas
cards are usually exchanged during the weeks preceding Christmas Day on December
25 by many people (including non-Christians) in Western society and in Asia. The
traditional greeting inside a Christmas card often reads "wishing you a Merry
Christmas and a Happy New Year". There are innumerable variations on this
greeting, many cards expressing more religious sentiment, or containing a poem,
prayer or Biblical verse.
A Christmas card is generally commercially designed and purchased for the
occasion. The content of the design might relate directly to the Christmas
narrative with depictions of the Nativity of Jesus, or have Christian symbols
such as the Star of Bethlehem or a white dove representing both the Holy Spirit
and Peace. Many Christmas cards are secular and show Christmas traditions such
as Santa Claus, objects associated with Christmas such as candles, holly and
baubles, and Christmastime activities such as shopping and partying, or other
aspects of the season such as the snow and wildlife of the northern winter. Many
secular cards depict nostalgic scenes of the past such as crinolined shoppers in
19th century streetscapes. Many secular Christmas cards are humorous,
particularly in depicting the antics of Santa and his retinue.
Some Christian groups (such as Jehovah's Witnesses) do not celebrate Christmas
because there is not explicit Biblical authorization for the tradition, and so
do not exchange Christmas cards.
History
The first commercial Christmas cards were commissioned by Sir Henry Cole in
London, 1843, and featured an illustration by John Callcott Horsley. The
picture, of a family with a small child drinking wine together, proved
controversial, but the idea was shrewd: Cole had helped introduce the Penny Post
three years earlier. A batch of 1000 cards was printed and sold for a shilling
each.
Early English cards rarely showed winter or religious themes, instead favoring
flowers, fairies and other fanciful designs that reminded the recipient of the
approach of spring. Humorous and sentimental images of children and animals were
popular, as were increasingly elaborate shapes, decorations and materials. In
1875 Louis Prang became the first printer to offer cards in America, though the
popularity of his cards led to cheap imitations that eventually drove him from
the market. The advent of the postcard spelled the end for elaborate
Victorian-style cards, but by the 1920s, cards with envelopes had returned.
The production of Christmas cards was, throughout the 20th century, a profitable
business for many stationery manufacturers, with the design of cards continually
evolving with changing tastes and printing techniques. The World Wars brought
cards with patriotic themes. Idiosyncratic "studio cards" with cartoon
illustrations and sometimes risque humor caught on in the 1950s. Nostalgic,
sentimental, and religious images have continued in popularity, and, in the 21st
century, reproductions of Victorian and Edwardian cards are easy to obtain.
Modern Christmas cards can be bought individually but are also sold in packs of
the same or varied designs.
In recent decades changes in technology may be responsible for the decline of
the Christmas card. The estimated number of cards received by American
households dropped from 29 in 1987 to 20 in 2004. Email and telephones allow for
more frequent contact and are easier for generations raised without handwritten
letters - especially given the availability of websites offering free email
Christmas cards. Despite the decline, 1.9 billion cards were sent in the U.S. in
2005 alone. Some card manufacters, such as Hallmark, now provide E-cards.
Official Christmas cards
"Official" Christmas cards began with Queen Victoria in the 1840s. The British
royal family's cards are generally portraits reflecting significant personal
events of the year. In 1953, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower issued the
first official White House card. The cards usually depict White House scenes as
rendered by prominent American artists. The number of recipients has snowballed
over the decades, from just 2000 in 1961 to 1.4 million in 2005.
Commercial Christmas cards
Many businesses, from small local businesses to multi-nnational enterprises send
Christmas cards to the people on their customer lists, as a way to develop
general goodwill, retain brand awareness and reinforce social networks. These
cards are almost always discrete and secular in design, and do not attempt to
sell a product, limiting themselves to mentioning the name of the business. The
practice harkens back to trade cards of the 18th century, an ancestor of the
modern Christmas card. Calendars are oftengiven as a gift to colleagues or
customers in lieu of Christmas cards, the most famous of such being the Pirelli
calender.
Charity Christmas cards
Many organizations produce special Christmas cards as a fundraising tool. The
most famous of these enterprises is probably the UNICEF Christmas card program,
launched in 1949. Some charity cards are produced by commercial printers, who
give a portion of the proceeds to the charity. Others are produced and sold by
the charity itself. 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.
Christmas stamps and stickers
Many countries produce official Christmas stamps, which may be brightly coloured
and depict some aspect of Christmas tradition or a Nativity scene. Smalll
decorative stickers are also made to seal the back of envelopes, often showing a
trinket or symbol of Christmas.
In 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 an orange.
Home-made cards
Since the 19th century, many families and individuals have chosen to make their
own cards, either in response to monetary necessity, as an artistic endeavour,
or in order to avoid the commercialism associated with Christmas cards. Many
families make the creation of Christmas cards a family endeavour and part of the
seasonal festivity, along with stirring the Christmas cake and decorating the
tree. Over the years such cards have been produced in every type of paint and
crayon, in collage and in simple printing techniques such as potato-cuts. A
revival of interest in paper crafts, particularly scrapbooking, has raised the
status of the homemade card and made available an array of tools for stamping,
punching and cutting.
Advances in digital photography and printing have provided the technology for
many people to design and print their own cards, using their original graphic
designs or photos, or those available with many computer programs or online as
clip art, as well as a great range of typefaces. Such homemade cards include
personal touches such as family photos and holidays snapshots.
Collectors items
From the beginning, Christmas cards have been avidly collected. Queen Mary
amassed a large collection that is now housed in the British Museum. Specimens
from the "golden age" of printing (1840s-1890s) are especially prized and bring
in large sums at auctions. In December 2005, one of Horsley's original cards
sold for nearly £9000. Collectors may focus on particular images like Santa
Claus, poets, or printing techniques.
The Christmas card list
Many people send cards to both close friends and distant acquaintances,
potentially making the sending of cards a multi-hour chore in addressing scores
or even hundreds of envelopes. The greeting in the card can be personalized but
brief, or may include a summary of the year's news. The extreme of this is the
Christmas letter (below). Because cards are usually exchanged year after year,
the phrase "to be off someone's Christmas card list" is used to indicate a
falling out between friends or public figures.
Christmas letters
Some people take the annual mass mailing of cards as an opportunity to update
everybody with the year's events, and include the so-called "Christmas letter"
reporting on the family's doings, sometimes running to multiple printed pages.
While a practical notion, Christmas letters meet with a mixed reception;
recipients may take it as boring minutiae, bragging, or a combination of the
two. Since the letter will be received by both close and distant relatives,
there is also the potential for the family members to object to how they are
presented to others; an entire episode of Everybody Loves Raymond was built
around conflict over the content of just such a letter.
Environmental impact and recycling
During the first 70 years of the 19th century it was common for Christmas and
other greeting cards to be recycled by women's service organisations who
collected then and removed the pictures, to be pasted into scrap books for the
entertainment of children in hospitals, orphanages, kindergartens and missions.
With children's picture books becoming cheaper and more readily available, this
form of scrap-booking has almost disappeared.
Recent concern over the environmental impact of printing, mailing and delivering
cards has fueled an increase in e-cards. "Green" alternatives to the glittery
paper standard include those made with recycled paper and vegetable-based inks.
Since 2000, the U.K. conservation charity Woodland Trust has sponsored an annual
campaign to collect and recycle Christmas cards to raise awareness of recycling
and collect donations from corporate sponsors. Its goal for 2007 is to collect
90 million cards by year's end.
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