Design Crafters

Many families send out photo Christmas cards each holiday season nowadays, but it turns out photo Christmas cards are not as modern as one might think. They may not have been very common (or inexpensive) back in the 1920s but it certainly wasn’t completely unheard of.  To illustrate this, let me tell you a friend’s story.

My friend LeeAnn was helping her grandparents clean out their attic a few months ago.  Pushed way to the back of the attic, in a dark and dusty corner, she found an old steamer trunk full of family treasures.  Beneath a family heirloom quality baby’s christening gown, she discovered a box full of photos and Christmas Cards. One set of Christmas cards stood out as this stack was all tied together with a ribbon. They were from the same family, dated 1920s through the 1930s. Each card was carefully handmade and had a photo pasted onto it of the family for each year there was a card.

It turned out that LeAnn’s grandmother was in fact raised by her Aunt and Uncle instead of her birth parents. When she was born her parents were dirt poor and couldn’t afford to raise her, so her Aunt and Uncle raised her as their own. As time went on, her grandmother’s birth parents (who she knew as Aunt and Uncle), became financially stable and had more children. By that time it would be best for her to stay with the parents she already knew. Every year her birth family would make it a point to send her handmade photo Christmas cards.  It wasn’t until her late teens she discovered the true relationship and realized why she was the only one to receive the only photo Christmas card they would make that year.

What a lovely example of how important a family’s Christmas card can become to someone over time.  Maybe it’s time for your own family to make a little family history with a photo Christmas card this holiday season.