Like so many significant inventions, the use of greeting cards can be traced back to ancient China, the culture that also invented paper, gunpowder, the compass, and woodblock printing. The Chinese exchanged New Year greetings. Early Egyptians sent personal greetings on scrolls of papyrus. As early as the 1400s, Europeans were exchanging handmade custom holiday cards. In Germany, woodcut prints on cards were in use around this time, and in several places in Europe engaged in the tradition of exchanging Valentine cards. The oldest Valentine yet discovered is now housed in the British Museum in London.
Over the next four centuries, holiday cards evolved from expensive, handmade, personally delivered gifts to being affordable personal communications that continued to increase in popularity. The drop in price due to mechanization of printing contributed greatly to the increased interest in the tradition of sending greeting cards. Christmas cards first appeared in London in the mid-1800s, and mass production of them commenced around 1860. Continued technical advances like color lithography in the 1930s, and humorous “studio cards” that debuted in the 1940s and 1950s made holiday cards a tradition worldwide.
Holiday cards for Saint Valentine’s Day, which is celebrated on February 14, is a traditional day for people to express their love for spouses, significant others, and family members by sending holiday cards, candy, and flowers. This holiday was named after two early martyrs of Christendom who were named Valentine. It was in the middle ages when the day’s emphasis shifted toward romantic love.
Valentine’s Day involves the mutual exchange of millions of holiday cards commonly referred to as “valentines.” The tradition of sending valentines as holiday cards emerged in 19th century Great Britain. The first successful American creator of holiday cards is reported to be Esther Howland of Worcester, Massachusetts, who handmade the cards and began selling them in 1847. Some people attribute the commercialization of holidays and holiday cards to the popularity of valentines. Such holidays are commonly referred to in America as “Hallmark Holidays” because of the ubiquity of holiday cards manufactured by the company Hallmark.
Mother’s Day is actually a relatively new holiday, but it is a very big day in terms of holiday cards. Mother’s Day cards, exchanged in most places on the second Sunday in May, have only been a tradition in the U.S. since 1914, wh en President Woodrow Wilson signed a bill recognizing the holiday. In addition to holiday cards, mothers are often the recipients of restaurant meals, flowers, and other presents.
Father’s Day is celebrated on the third Sunday in June. Fifty-two countries celebrate Father’s Day at this time, but there are places in the world that celebrate Father’s Day on other days. Father’s Day was inaugurated in the early part of the 20th century as a counterpart to Mother’s Day, to celebrate fatherhood, and male parenting in general. Father’s Day is another big day for holiday cards, and fathers are traditionally honored with gifts, special dinners, and family oriented activities. Both Father’s Day and Mother’s Day are sometimes decried as made up “Hallmark Holidays” that are primarily hyped to get people to spend money on cards and gifts.
Birthday cards have been around for at least a century. There’s no real historical record about where the tradition of sending birthday cards began. Around the beginning of the 1900s, birthday cards became popular in England as substitutes for personally seeing a person on their birthday. Since birthday cards were seen as an alternative to a personal greeting, they originated as somewhat of an apologetic greeting, but over the years birthday cards have come to represent welcome and warm birthday greetings, and are in many cases sent with a small amount of cash enclosed in the form of a check.
As holiday cards go, birthday cards run the gamut from humorously insulting to emotionally infused testaments of love or admiration. Card designers cater to every possible emotion behind birthday greetings, and they create them in virtually every language. In acknowledgment of those who tend to be forgetful, there is also a large market in “belated” birthday cards, in which the sender apologizes for missing the actual birthday but nevertheless s ends warm wishes.
If you ask anyone for the definition of “holiday cards,” he or she will likely think of cards sent at Christmas. Even in difficult economic times, holiday cards at the end of the year hold on as a strong tradition. The second Monday before Christmas is usually the U.S. Postal Service’s busiest day. Even though online bill paying and email have replaced some forms of postal communication, the U.S. Post Office regularly anticipates over 15 billion pieces of mail sent between Thanksgiving and Christmas. The only trend noticeable around the Christmas holidays during economic slumps is that toward buying multiple boxed cards rather than individual ones.
As the number of interfaith families in the U.S. and around the world has increased, there is also a large market for Hanukkah cards and cards that send greetings for both Christmas and Hanukkah to families who celebrate both. A more recent trend still i s the sending of holiday cards for Kwanzaa. Celebrated primarily in the U.S., Kwanzaa is a weeklong celebration of African heritage that is marked by the lighting of candles, gift giving, and elaborate meals.
The sending of holiday cards has grown over the years to include holidays that may not be as prominent as Valentine’s Day and Christmas, but that people nonetheless want to commemorate and share greetings. People send cards for occasions like St. Patrick’s Day, Armed Forces Day, Martin Luther King, Jr. Birthday, Grandparents’ Day, Easter, and Halloween. People also send “holiday cards” on occasions that are personal milestones for the recipient. These occasions include graduation, weddings, the birth of a child, Bar Mitzvah, Bat Mitzvah, First Holy Communion, Confirmation, a promotion at work, or another significant milestone where best wishes are appropriate.
Perhaps one of the biggest increas es in the sending of holiday cards is the sending of Halloween cards in the United States. And one of the biggest surprises about the trend is that men are outspending women, according to a survey by the National Retail Federation. On average men said they planned to spend nearly $40 on cards and decorations, while women only planned to spend $30.
Halloween greetings are by and large humorous and light hearted, though the humor can sometimes be dark. Rather than being considered a “holiday” like Christmas, it is considered in much the same vein as St. Patrick’s Day, as an excuse to have a party. Some people who like sending cards or who like making holiday cards will look for occasions for greetings. Websites like holidayinsights.com have extensive lists of “holidays” that have been declared by various government entities year round. These have to be custom holiday cards because there aren’t com mercial cards available for them. Some of the obscure “holidays” throughout the year in the U.S. include: National Hat Day, George Washington’s Birthday, World Juggler’s Day, International Forgiveness Day, and Oktoberfest.
Another trend in holiday cards is the sending of “e-cards” as opposed to paper cards. People usually only send e-cards on minor occasions or when they want to send wishes to people they don’t know very well. But while the popularity of e-cards is increasing, particularly in light of attention to the environmental consequences of using too much paper, there are days when e-cards just won’t do, according to the U.S. Postal Service. For Christmas, Hanukkah, Mother’s Day, and Valentine’s Day, people still insist on sending paper holiday cards.