More is more. When it comes from the heart.
Christmas cards are loved by some, others consider them superfluous. How do you feel?
From Christmas correspondence to Christmas cards
Henry Cole, merchant and co-founder of the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, believed in Christmas greetings as a way of keeping in touch with customers and family.
However, the individual correspondence became so time-consuming for him and his employees that in 1843 he asked a renowned illustrator to develop Christmas motifs with appropriate greetings to make the sending of Christmas mail more efficient.
Greetings card, John Callcott Horsley, 1843 © Victoria and Albert Museum, London
On these cards, which are considered to be the first Christmas cards, only a short individual message was written by hand to replace a letter.
After having had good experiences with this simplified form of Christmas correspondence himself, he tried to sell the first Christmas cards commercially. Initially without much success.
It was only later, when the German-born Albert, Prince Consort of Queen Victoria, popularized more and more German Christmas traditions in English society, that the Christmas card also became more popular.
Are you still writing, or are you already writing?
Paper Christmas cards are becoming rarer. Why go to the trouble of buying, writing, stamping and mailing cards when a WhatsApp with Christmas greetings can be created in just a few seconds?
Because it can be a nice ritual in the run-up to Christmas to spend an evening or two with candlelight, good music in the background and a stack of carefully selected Christmas cards on the table.
The fewer physical Christmas cards are written, the greater the attention for each individual card. Rarities are more valuable than large print runs.
The sight of a row of Christmas cards is a nice way to get in the mood for Christmas, which cannot be said of the inbox in the mail program, which contains many other messages as well as the odd electronic Christmas card.
Haptics beats bytes. Content beats standard
For all aesthetes, there is no alternative to a paper Christmas card. The haptic experience of an envelope with a good grammage and the experience of a beautiful Christmas motif alone are a pleasure for visually oriented people.
The fact that the inventor of the Christmas card also helped to found one of London’s most beautiful and interesting museums is no coincidence. At the Victoria & Albert Museum and in many museum stores, we have repeatedly purchased exceptionally beautiful Christmas cards.
But time is indeed an extremely scarce commodity during Advent. That’s why an electronic Christmas greeting can be an alternative before you don’t send anything at all.
Here, more really is more
A Christmas greeting needs to be personalized to be effective. An electronic greeting with individually formulated words is better than the most beautiful paper Christmas card with a standard greeting.
Especially in these difficult times, when the ongoing war against Ukraine and the attack on Israel make the standard phrase “Merry Christmas” seem surreal.
Words that come from the heart help us to believe in the magic of Christmas and to feel the warmth of closeness even across thousands of kilometers.
With this in mind, we wish you many individually formulated warm Christmas greetings.
