Design Crafters

Here’s a little quiz:  what popular Christmas season staple will celebrate its’ 165^th “birthday” later this year?  Give up?  That’d be the Christmas card .  History shows that Sir Henry Cole — then-director of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, England – commissioned an artist to create a card that he could send to his friends for Christmas.  What inspired Sir Henry to think up the idea in the first place?  He realized that he was too busy to write a holiday letter to each and every one of his friends as he had previous Christmases.  And so the Christmas card came into being.

Not too surprisingly, as brand-new to the world as the concept of Christmas cards were in 1843, the cards managed to cause an uproar.  Not just over the brilliant idea of the cards itself, but because the image on the front of Sir Henry’s card was of a family enjoying their holiday dinner while a child sipped wine.  Many were outraged and Sir Henry’s cards were declared to be “fostering moral corruption in children.”

Nonetheless, the idea of Christmas cards took off in popularity almost immediately.  At first, Christmas cards with religious themes were the only ones available, but it didn’t take long for other Christmas card themes to appear on the market. 

Nowadays, of course, you can find a Christmas card in just about any theme or motif you could dream up:  nature, with family photos, corporate, patriotic, humorous, sports-themed, luxurious, classic, cartoon characters, and of course featuring Santa Claus in his many forms. So don’t forget to raise a cup of eggnog to toast Sir Henry’s brilliant idea this winter!