A Right Jolly Christmas - December 2009 Document of the Month

Christmas cards are a recent development

It is rather surprising that the Christmas card as we know it is only a recent development. Unlike the Valentine card, which developed into card form in the 18th-century, Christmas cards only became a popular tradition in the middle of the 19th century. It is thought that the period from 1878 to 1888 represents the heyday of the Victorian Christmas card. The history of such cards is made easier to research by the fact that the Victorians were obsessed with collecting. Scrapbooks were something of a national mania, since they provided a way for middle-class women to occupy their time. By the mid-1870s Christmas cards were well established providing an excellent vehicle for sentimentality and morality. This image is of three such sentimental cards, which we have put together to form one image, (our ref: D/1821).

Major influences

One of the major influences in the development of the Christmas card takes the form of a New Year greeting. Rather like the Christmas tree this is a German tradition, one of the earliest examples being a woodcut by the Master E. S. from 1467 that wishes "a good and happy New Year". A further German tradition, which is also linked to the Christmas card is the namenstag;an illuminated card that was sent to members of the family on their patron saint's day.

Christmas cards are classified as printed ephemera, yet they provide a valuable resource for investigating several aspects of their age, including social ideology, visual perception, printing technology and the development of Christmas traditions. Initially, cards were made of a jumbled mixture of materials that were readily available. It was thought in the 1860s that they were going to be a trend for only a few years. This being the case, many of the early cards were Valentine or birthday cards with the wording altered. The early card publishers were established Valentine or fancy stationery producers; however the demand for original designs led to a number of card competitions. This new area of design attracted many new and well-known artists such as Randolph Caldecott, Walter Crane and Kate Greenaway.

Materials used

A wide variety of materials were used to create cards. Some had their origins in Valentine manufacture such as lace paper; others had their origins in toy theatre, for example metallic tinselled elements. Many of the papers used were embossed and the pressure they had to endure was immense, as they were put through ball presses or had the designs hammered into them. It was during such a process that lace paper was discovered when a file was accidentally drawn over the surface.