Who sends Christmas cards?

Historical purists might claim the first Christmas card was the elaborately decorated, 33 inch by 24 inch three-panel manuscript given to King James I of England (aka King James IV of Scotland) in 1611. The center panel contained a rose with a Christmas and New Year greeting around it, while the side panels had four poems and a song.

Among non-purists, Sir Henry Cole is more commonly accepted as the originator of the Christmas card in 1843. According to the standards of Victorian England, it was impolite not to answer one's mail. Cole, apparently a man with many friends, dreaded the task of trying to respond by letter to each person's Christmas greeting. Necessity being the mother of invention, Cole hit upon the ingenious idea of mass printing his Christmas missives. He described a design to artist friend J.C. Horsley: a three-panel painting, the center panel showing a family sitting around a festive meal table with a banner beneath them proclaiming A Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year. The side panels were to depict on one side a man bringing food to the poor and on the other a lady placing a cloak around a poor woman carrying an infant. Cole had a London printer run off a thousand cardboard copies of Horsley's resulting painting. Not having quite that number of friends and being an enterprising man, Cole advertised the rest for sale.

His advertising blurb read: "Just published, a Christmas Congratulations Card; or picture emblematical of old English festivity to perpetuate kind recollections between dear friends."

Not so coincidentally, since Cole helped introduce the Penny Post in England, the recent introduction of public postal delivery in 1840 meant people could mail the cards – which required no envelope – for a halfpenny. The cards gained instant popularity.

Some Christmas cards circulated throughout the United States in the late 1840s, but most were expensive so primarily it was the wealthy exchanging cards with one another.

In 1875 printer Louis Prang began mass producing cards featuring flowers, plants and children accompanied by a Christmas greeting. He priced the cards within reach of a less affluent clientele and his business thrived.

In 1915 Joyce Hall and his brothers Rollie and William got into the card printing business, establishing the standard card size we are accustomed to. Ten years later the business changed its name to Hallmark.

By the 1930s, commercial Christmas cards had become enormously popular and a number of different companies were publishing them. To maintain a competitive edge, Hallmark commissioned famous artists to create new designs, among them Grandma Moses, Norman Rockwell and Salvador Dali. Rockwell's designs are still reprinted today. Dali's did not fare as well. His surrealist renditions of Christmas trees, the Nativity, the Three Kings and other seasonal subjects were quickly pulled from the shelves.

In modern times traditional Christmas cards have a number of competitors vying for attention. To begin with, social media platforms offer daily opportunities for sending greetings to friends, reporting the latest family happenings and posting innumerable pictures of oneself, the family, the pets, etc. At the opposite end is the annual Christmas letter which tries to summarize the whole year's happenings for the benefit of friends one hasn't communicated with since the last Christmas letter exchange. Home printed or photocopied, these letters are often accompanied by pictures of family members engaged in the events explained in the letter. These letters are also prone to arriving somewhat after Dec. 25, sometimes under the guise of New Year letters.

Another competitor of the traditional greeting card is the e-card market. Unlike the static picture on a traditional card, e-cards are usually animated and accompanied by music.

So have these more modern forms rendered the time-honored Christmas card tradition obsolete?

Well, yes and no. Yes in the sense that fewer cards display religious scenes or carry wholehearted or religious messages appropriate to the season. No because surprisingly, Millennials, those individuals born between 1980-1994 who grew up with computers and social media as a constant in their lives and who are as likely to post a picture of their breakfast as a family portrait, those Millennials are buoying up the Christmas card market. Millennials are more inclined, however, to purchase cards with humorous or even snarky scenes and messages.

For instance, a crop of 2020 Christmas cards show Christmas trees made up of pyramid-shaped toilet paper rolls; Santa, elves, reindeer or people wearing COVID-19 masks; or trees decorated with toilet paper in lieu of colored ribbon. These cards carry messages such as "Spread joy not germs," "Merry quarantine Christmas," "Oh deer, what a year" or the perhaps more heartfelt "Don't let COVID spoil the magic."

According to Hallmark, Millennials represent nearly 20% of the dollars spent on greeting cards. Those among them who opt for more traditional themes are likely to spend up to two dollars more for cards with glitter or foil or cutouts, cards that seem a little more like presents.

The Greeting Card Association noted that despite all those photos on social media, interest in family portrait holiday cards is on the rise, as are custom and handmade cards from e-commerce websites such as Etsy.

Ironically, research by the United States Postal Service found that while Millennials are least likely to send letters via snail mail, they are the denomination most likely to mail greeting cards. One reason posited is that since they receive such a low volume of mailed correspondence, each piece they do receive is more special.

As 23-year-old Yuliya Goloida explained in an article in "The Atlantic" entitled "Millennials Are Keeping Family Holiday Cards Alive, "Anything you post on a digital platform gets buried by all the other digital things around it. A family holiday card, on the other hand, is a tangible memory that is protected from the bombardment of other images-it brings back the privacy and personal aspect."

Millennial Ryan Wales agreed, "It's always more personal than anything Facebook, Instagram, or even an email or text can deliver."

So the Christmas card industry that began as a way to avoid having to mail personal missives to a multitude of friends has come full circle. Snail mail cards are now considered the best, most personal way to send holiday wishes that convey "you are special to me."

Christmas Card Trivia

- In the United States there are an estimated 3,000 greeting card publishers.

- Of all cards sent in the United States, 61% are Christmas cards.

- An average of 1.6 billion Christmas cards were sent last year.

- Only 20% of card buyers are men.

- Hallmark has more than 2,000 Christmas card designs.

- Snow scenes are one of the most popular Christmas card designs 22%, humorous images 14%, nativity scenes 7%, Christmas trees and decorations 6% (according to 2016 statistics)

- A growing percentage of photo cards feature the sender’s pets.

- According to a Hallmark survey, 72% of Millennials enjoy giving cards; 82% enjoy receiving them.

- Annie Oakley sent the first known Christmas card featuring a “selfie” to friends in the States in 1891. Visiting Scotland as part of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, she set aside her western cowgirl apparel for full tartan plaid – pleated skirt, matching jacket, knee socks and sash. She also carried a rifle.

- The most cards sent in a year by one person: 62,824.

- The most expensive card (the original card sent by Sir Henry Cole in 1843 to his grandmother) was sold at auction for $35,800.