History of Christmas Cards

Christmas is a great occasion for celebration and enjoyment. The Christmas festival season is the period where one can spend quality time with friends and family. A lot of things like decorating home, Christmas tree, parties, feasts and family reunion are associated with the festival of Christmas. The entire festive season is spent dining and merry making. People just love the festive fervor, happiness and hope that Christmas brings with it. Christmas has a lot of traditions like giving gifts, sending Christmas cards, attending church services and so on.

Sending Christmas cards is an important tradition associated with Christmas celebration. Every family sends and receives these specially made Christmas cards to friends and extended family. The British follow the tradition of reading a single card received every night during the Christmas season. The card is read out at the dinner table before dinner loudly by one family member and then there is a prayer for the card sender. This helps the children in understanding how sending a Christmas card is an important tradition of Christmas. Christmas cards are available in various sizes, shapes and colors. They usually have beautiful pictures and designs on the first page. The second page has Christmas and New Year message.

The first Christmas card was created in the year 1843 in London. This card had a picture of family having wine in festive mood. This picture was drawn by John Horsley. This card was prepared for Sir Henry Cole who wanted an easy way to answer the thousands of Christmas greetings that he had received. This card was simple and easy to send than the handwritten message as they consumed a lot of time. This idea of Cole got struck and one could see these cards in the market. The cost of one card was one shilling. This way, Christmas cards were introduced in Britain.

The early Christmas cards did not carry any religious scenes, nativity scenes or symbols related to Christmas. The cards had flowers, beautiful designs, fancy fairies, etc. All these images symbolized the coming of spring season. The images of small kids, animals and so on were getting popular in the market of England. In the year 1875, these Christmas cards were introduced in American markets by the printer, Louis Prang. This led to many printers taking up the business of manufacturing Christmas cards during the early twentieth century. The card was used as a medium to give out Christmas message that had religious and political sentiments.

The trick Christmas card was popular during Victorian times. These trick cards were available in the market in various types. These cards looked simple but when one opened them, pull a string or moved the lever then one could see how big is the card or how fabulous is the picture inside. These cards were such a surprise. The cards came in varieties like pullout flower card, currency notes and checks.