Showing posts with label Christmas cards. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Christmas cards. Show all posts

December 9 - Christmas Card Day

  Posted on December 9, 2021



Christmas cards are some of the earliest and most popular greeting cards in the world - but like all other forms of paper-and-postage, they have dipped a little bit in numbers. However, the chance to send photo greetings and do once-a-year catch-up with far-flung friends and family hasn't slipped in popularity as much as other forms of mail have.


The first Christmas cards may be those created by Brits Sir Henry Cole and John Horsely, in 1843. They deliberately created and promoted Christmas cards in order to encourage people to use the new postal delivery system.



 

In 1875 German printer Louis Prang started mass-producing Christmas cards, which brought the prices down. They started getting more popular in the U.S. and elsewhere.




When the Hall brothers started the Hallmark Company, in the early 1900s, the practice of sending Christmas cards really took off.



 

Nowadays, Americans buy around 1.6 billion Christmas cards per year - making Christmas the largest card-sending holiday in the U.S. Personalized holiday cards featuring family photos are among the most popular types of season's greetings.



And some of the family photo cards are deliberately funny.






Also on this date:



















Weary Willie Day



























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November 29 - Electronic Greetings Day

Posted on November 29, 2020

Do you get birthday cards in the mail?

Do you get holiday cards such as Christmas or Kwanzaa greetings? 

Do you SEND greeting cards or holiday cards to friends or loved ones? And, if you do, do you do it the slower, more expensive way - with paper cards, envelopes, and stamps, that is!?


For about a century, the mid-1800s until the mid-1990s, the
custom of sending printed greeting cards and especially Christmas cards grew and grew until multiple billions of cards are sold every year. But greeting cards - and postage - can be quite expensive, especially if you send out a lot. Even an average person sending not-all-that-posh cards to parents and cousins, grandparents and aunts and uncles, colleagues and friends, neighbors and important business contacts might have a Christmas-card list that is about 100 names long - and that could cost around $135! Which is quite a bit of money - and if that "average person" also sends birthday greetings to a substantial portion of this list, then that person is spending a lot! Every year!

Sending printed photo cards used to be REALLY expensive 


And...then there's the waste:

More than 2.5 billion Christmas cards are bought in the U.S. alone - every year! - and that makes a lot of waste to add to the waste that wrapping paper and packaging and other holiday-related activities generate. Wow! Leaving aside all the waste produced by Christmas in America, the greeting cards alone could fill a football field 10 stories high!!!


But technology can enable us to send colorful greetings with personalized messages, thoughtful letters, and personal photos or even videos very inexpensively - usually for free! - and with zero waste! And people who procrastinate can still get their greetings to their loved ones on time, because email and other electronic messaging is almost instant! Because of the convenience, speed, lack of expense and zero-waste involved in sending electronic greetings rather than paper-and-postage cards, electronics greetings are gaining in popularity!



To celebrate, just use your smart phone, tablet, laptop, or computer to craft holiday greetings! Or explore e-card companies with inexpensive or free offerings. Animated snowmen, anyone?







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