How Did Christmas Cards Come To Be

How Did Christmas Cards Come To Be?

Henry Cole, an Englishman, was too busy to write personal greetings for Christmas 1843. Cole hired artist John Calcott Horsley to design a ready-to-be-sent card. The hand-colored card Horsley designed was lithographed on stiff, dark cardboard and featured adults and children raising wine glasses in a toast. The first Christmas card also had various religious symbols. Sprigs of holly symbolized chastity, while ivy symbolized places God had walked. Feeding and clothing the poor were also encouraged on the card's cover. Under the picture was written "A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you." Printed in an edition of 1,000, Horsley's card was sold in London stores. Only one of those cards exists today. Two reasons for the initial popularity of Christmas cards are given: The custom may have caught on because greetings could be mailed for a penny each in 1843, London. The other reason is attributed to a scandal with Horsley's design. A family, surrounded with religious symbols, holding glasses of wine, offended some. The controversy is thought to have helped promote Cole's idea.

Louis Prang created the first American Christmas cards at his Boston factory in 1874.

American families sent and received an average of 28 Christmas cards each.

According to the Greeting Card Association, an industry trade group based in Washington, D.C., an estimated 2.1 billion paper Christmas cards will crisscross the country (United States) in 2002. Source: Butler Eagle, December 26, 2002.

In the Thomas Nast cartoon that first depicted Santa Claus with a sleigh and reindeer, he was delivering Christmas gifts to soldiers fighting in the U. S. Civil War. The cartoon, entitled "Santa Claus in Camp," appeared in Harper's Weekly on January 3, 1863. Source: WISR 680AM News Sheet