The tradition of sending a Christmas Card to a loved one or a friend started in the mid 19th century and even before a common postal system. Traveling friends were asked to take Christmas notes between family members, the form of the day was to write a poem or paint a picture to accompany the early Christmas Card. Christmas Cards gradually became more commonplace especially after the introduction of the penny post in 1840 which made the sending of letters easy and reliable.

The first recorded Christmas Card was sent in 1843 when Henry Cole, an important and well known London business man did not have time to write letters to all his friends, family and business acquaintances, so to solve this problem Henry asked a local painter to depict a festive Christmas scene of an English Victorian Family enjoying Christmas and other bystanders performing charitable acts. With this picture Henry asked local printer John Calcott Horsley to print 1000 copies, he signed them and sent them to his friends and family. The amount of Christmas Cards Henry had left he sold for one shilling each and made a healthy profit!

By the end of the 19th century Christmas card sending was commonplace and with the further improvements in printing technologies and the postal service it was a sure sign that a new tradition was here to stay. Today millions of Christmas cards are sent every year typically depicting Nativity scenes with Mary, Joseph, Jesus, Father Christmas, Rudolph or Jokes.

Click here to visit our Blog and read up on some other info and news on Christmas