How the Tradition of Sending Christmas Cards Started - By: S.Roberts

Tradition has it that when Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire, it merged the celebration of Christ's nativity (the real date is still unknown) with a Roman holiday whose celebration included the giving of gifts. Gift giving also fitted in with the Christmas beliefs where the giving of gifts echoes the gifts that the three wise men gave Jesus.

However, the practice seems to have come and gone through the ages, once more becoming in fashion about the 1830s or so; "The Night Before Christmas" poem by Moore and "The Christmas Carol" by Dickens date to that period. Traditionally, the giver of gifts is considered to be Saint Nicholas; however each country has their own gift givers.

The first Christmas card was designed by a man named John Calcott Horsely for Sir Henry Cole, the friend who had given him the idea back in 1843. Cole was a civil servant who helped to instigate the Penny Post and the first stamp.

Cole suggested to his friend in 1840 that Horsley design a greetings card after Cole had confided that he was finding himself too busy to write to his friends during the holiday season and hence the invention of the Christmas card.

A thousand copies of the card were printed and sold for one shilling. Printed in black and white the one thousand cards were then coloured by hand. These gifts of small works of art became affordable to nearly everyone and grew in popularity when due to the modern efficiency of the railway system; the half penny postage rate was introduced in 1870. Printed cards soon became the rage in England; then in Germany. But it required an additional thirty years for Americans to take to the idea.

Christmas cards produced in the years that followed tended to be elaborate, often decorated with fabrics such as silk and satin, embossed and often shaped, and were typical of the Victorian taste for excessive detail. Such specimens from the ‘golden age’ of printing are especially prized and can fetch vast sums of money at auction.

Sending and receiving Christmas cards are a holiday tradition that keeps us in the Christmas spirit through the holidays all the way to the New Year.

About the Author

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