Christmas Cards - Then and Now

Wikipedia may not be “Gospel;” however, I support it faithfully with an annual donation at this time of year, because it is an excellent and instantaneous resource. I find it of particular value when I’m researching matters of history. According to Wikipedia, “the first known Christmas card was sent by Michael Maier to James I of England and his son Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales in 1611.” The card read: “A greeting on the birthday of the Sacred King, to the most worshipful and energetic lord and most eminent James, King of Great Britain and Ireland, and Defender of the true faith, with a gesture of joyful celebration of the Birthday of the Lord, in most joy and fortune, we enter into the new auspicious year 1612." That first Christmas card was handmade with painstaking care.

By the mid-nineteenth century, Christmas cards had become a commercial enterprise. Examples of what they probably looked like can be gleaned from children’s Christmas books, the kind that those of us who are of a certain age had the pleasure of reading when we were between the ages of six and perhaps twelve. Ornately dressed Victorian ladies in horsedrawn carriages brought the tidings: “A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.”

Other depictions included stylized family scenes, with elegant borders of holly or wreaths. Neither Baby Jesus nor the Holy Family tended to be the centerpiece of the pictorial display—reference to them served as decoration embedded into the margins. Other popular themes included rosy-faced, cherubic-looking children carrying flowers and dressed as though to be “seen and not heard.”

By the early twentieth century, Saint Nicholas—in his varied forms, both religious and secular—became an increasingly appealing subject for Christmas cards. Humor and even cynicism crept their way into popularity, making the production and sale of Christmas cards a highly commercialized and profitable industry in Europe and the United States. The onset of World War I, followed by the Second World War, was a boon to the industry as millions of people across the world sent messages of hope (and humor) from the homeland to the troops in far off and dangerous places.  

I was in my early twenties when I began to send out Christmas cards, specifically buying them by the box but with a variety of themes—Christmas depictions for my religious friends, and an array of secular cards for the rest.

By the time I was married with children, I was sending out hundreds of cards and was lucky enough to secure the services of my mother whose penmanship was the envy, not only of my husband, but of everyone who was fortunate enough to be the recipient of her correspondence. Every year she would come for a full week’s visit shortly after the Thanksgiving holiday. For hours in the evening, after the children had gone to bed, she and I would sit side by side at the dining room table. She would address by hand envelope after envelope, while I inscribed a personalized note to each recipient, then inserted the card into the envelope and sealed it, with the final responsibility being the selection of the correct stamp—religious, secular or Jewish. With Christmas music playing in the background, we mostly worked in silence, although on more than a few occasions, my mother, in her strong chest voice, would join the altos of whatever choir group was singing.

Sadly there came a day when my mother could no longer make the three-hour drive nor dedicate hours to the art of addressing envelopes, although her fine cursive handwriting remained with her until the age of ninety.  I then faced the reality of resorting to the services of a printer. That did not, however, remove the obligation to write a personalized note on each of the now close to 500 cards I sent out. Selecting the appropriate stamp for each recipient was less a challenge and more a delight.

Let me pause to give a shout out to the oft-maligned United States Postal Service. They may not always deliver your Christmas cards as promptly as you might wish; they may even lose some. But when it comes to the issue of celebrating holidays, historical events, flora and fauna, and a host of people worth honoring, that branch of the Federal Government, in my opinion, has been more creative than any other government department.  

With the advent of digital photography came an entirely new wave of Christmas/Holiday communication. Entire stories could be told in pictorial fashion and could be mailed out with barely the touch of the human hand. Rare was the intimacy of a handwritten, personalized note, but at least one could use one’s imagination to create a tale—a happy wedding, a successful fishing excursion, a new baby or a new puppy—and on and on. And truth be told, I have come to look forward to cards crammed with the family’s story conveyed with happy scenes and new generations.

There is, however, one form of Christmas/Holiday card that I find a disappointment. It’s easy to spot and fortunately, there are few of them. In the upper right hand corner of the envelope is a red postage meter stamp and the address is a stick-on label. I can sense what’s coming—inside is a card, perhaps with a picture of a couple printed on the inside, but more often with a non-descript, non-denominational greeting, and the names of the senders in print below. Untouched by human hands and produced from last year’s list (and the year before that and before that), the card and its detached missive give the feeling that something has been ticked off the “to do” list. May I have gone to my just reward before I am ever found to be guilty of such Christmas card etiquette malfeasance.

In the last year or two, the Email Christmas card has made its debut and before I lose all my friends by insulting that form of communication, let me hasten to say that just four days ago, I received the most joyfully uplifting E version of a Christmas card. There had been illness in the family, and it was with trepidation that I clicked on the email. The picture was indeed worth more than a thousand words—a healthy, intact family, and a letter that shared all the good news. The only disappointment is that I won’t get to add it to all the other cards I have received. Of course I could print it out, but isn’t that defeating the purpose of a card that is ecologically pure?

As an aside, I keep my Christmas cards in a large white wicker basket, and at some point in the spring, generally after Easter, I go through all of them one more time, before allowing them to be recycled—minus a few that I keep forever.

By some measures, I could be dubbed a luddite. I revel in the undeniably “old-fashioned” tradition of handwritten Christmas card messages and enjoy sharing family news with friends, some of whom I don’t get a chance to see for years on end. Adjusting to the modern, the post-modern, and the neo-modern versions of sharing Christmas/Holiday cards has taken time, but I’ve come around. And for sure, communication is so much better than no communication.

 

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.