Origin
Self-made cards with goodwill verses have been sent by hand or by post, for centuries. The first that’s recognizable as what we now think of as a Christmas card, i.e. a printed card sent by post, was sent at Christmas 1843.
Sir Henry Cole, the founder of the London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, had sent many handwritten cards previously but that year he commissioned John Calcott Horsley to paint a card showing the feeding and clothing of the poor.
“A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to You” was printed on the first Christmas card.
Since then the billions of cards that have been sent almost all contain a printed verse. Many of these are culled from religious or sentimental texts, notably from Victorian authors such as Charles Dickens.
Here’s a selection of the numerous verses and rhymes that have been used as source material by Christmas card writers – from the touching and profound to the comic and cynical:
A Christmas candle is a lovely thing;
It makes no noise at all,
But softly gives itself away;
While quite unselfish, it grows small. – Eva K. Logue
A Christmas gambol oft could cheer
The poor man’s heart through half the year. – Walter Scott
Are you willing to believe that love is the strongest thing in the world – stronger than hate, stronger than evil, stronger than death – and that the blessed life which began in Bethlehem nineteen hundred years ago is the image and brightness of the Eternal Love? Then you can keep Christmas. – Henry Van Dyke
As the Holiday Season is upon us, we find ourselves reflecting on the past year and on those who have helped to shape our business in a most significant way. We value our relationship with you and look forward to working with you in the year to come. We wish you a very happy Holiday Season and a New Year filled with peace and prosperity.
At Christmas play and make good cheer,
For Christmas comes but once a year – Thomas Tusser
Best wishes for a happy and prosperous New Year.
Bless us Lord, this Christmas, with quietness of mind;
Teach us to be patient and always to be kind. – Helen Steiner Rice
Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love! – Hamilton Wright Mabie
Christmas – that magic blanket that wraps itself about us, that something so intangible that it is like a fragrance. It may weave a spell of nostalgia. Christmas may be a day of feasting, or of prayer, but always it will be a day of remembrance – a day in which we think of everything we have ever loved. – Augusta E. Rundel
Christmas … is not an eternal event at all, but a piece of one’s home that one carries in one’s heart. – Freya Stark
Christmas Eve was a night of song that wrapped itself about you like a shawl. But it warmed more than your body. It warmed your heart… filled it, too, with a melody that would last forever. – Bess Streeter Aldrich
Christmas is a race to see which gives out first – your money or your feet.
Christmas is a time when everybody wants his past forgotten and his present remembered. What I don’t like about office Christmas parties is looking for a job the next day. – Phyllis Diller
Christmas is a time when kids tell Santa what they want and adults pay for it. Deficits are when adults tell the government what they want and their kids pay for it. – Richard Lamm
Christmas is a time when you get homesick – even when you’re home. – Carol Nelson
Christmas is for children. But it is for grown-ups too. Even if it is a headache, a chore, and nightmare, it is a period of necessary defrosting of chill and hide-bound hearts. – Lenora Mattingly Weber
Christmas is not a time nor a season, but a state of mind. To cherish peace and goodwill, to be plenteous in mercy, is to have the real spirit of Christmas. – Calvin Coolidge