The first Christmas card

Today is Christmas Card Day in honor of Sir Henry Cole (1818-1874) who created the first commercial Christmas card in 1843. He worked at the English Public Post Office, and wondered how the new postal service could be used by ordinary people.  Sir Henry and his artist friend John Horsley designed the first Christmas cards and sold them for a shilling each.

To put that in perspective, Scrooge paid his clerk Bob Crachett 15 shillings a week to support a family of six.  It was possible to live on 8 shillings a week in Victorian England, so I wonder how many "ordinary" people bought the first Christmas cards.  If you were lucky enough to receive one, it would have been carefully displayed and saved. Only a few were printed so the originals are worth thousands of dollars now.   

The first Christmas card (above) had three panels:  the outer drawings showed people caring for the poor and in the center panel a family is having a lavish Christmas dinner.  If you look closely, a child is drinking a glass of wine!  Or maybe grape Kool-Aid.

Just a few decades ago, sending Christmas cards through the mail was a holiday must. Many people have stopped sending them for understandable reasons.  I love Christmas cards (sending and receiving) and ours are on the dining table waiting to be addressed, which takes me a while.  I had nice handwriting once, but I notice every year it gets worse.

The only thing better than a personally signed Christmas card is a Christmas card with a handwritten note enclosed. Or one that includes a snapshot of their kids you haven't seen since last year's card.  This removes any doubt in your mind that time is indeed "flying by."

And the only thing better than the above mentioned holiday snail-mail is a real letter showing up (which the average person receives every 7 weeks) like the one that arrived yesterday from my brother-in-law in Mexico, containing some generous comments about this simple blog.  Thank you, Dan for taking the time to write a real one.