The magic of Christmas does not diminish with age. From little ones to grownups, everyone enjoys receiving gifts, attending parties and family reunions, and demonstrating love through acts of kindness. Aside from the parties and sumptuous food, many people look forward to receiving old-fashioned Christmas cards through snail mail. Christmas cards have a timeless appeal, as they are affordable, readily available, and can be personalized with messages and snapshots.
Christmas cards were first sent 170 years ago. In 1843, Henry Cole sent the first commercial greeting card with a Christmas theme in London. Cole’s painter friend John Callcott Horsley designed the card, which was composed of three sections. Two side panels had images of a person feeding the hungry, and another, clothing the naked.
The middle panel showed folks gathered together for a Christmas party with a message that read: “A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to You.” This historic holiday greeting was colored by hand on a stiff cardboard sized five and an eighth inches by three and a quarter inches. Felix Summerly’s Treasure House had 1,000 copies of the original card and sold each for one shilling. Only 12 of those cards, including the one Cole sent to his grandmother, have survived over the years.
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