Telling someone that they are loved during the Christmas season is easy with Christmas greeting messages. Multiple greeting card companies are always thinking up new ways to make the Christmas season special, improving on the variety and type of messages that can be found inside their Christmas cards.
The Origin of the Christmas Cards Custom
The custom of sending Christmas cards began in London in 1843 when Sir Henry Cole commissioned a card with an illustration by John Callcott Horsley. A batch of 1000 cards was printed off and sold for a shilling each. At that time the focus was more on the picture than on the Christmas greeting message inside. From around 1860, Christmas cards were produced in larger numbers As printing methods improved.
The Development of Christmas Cards
Traditionally, Christmas cards showed religious pictures illustrating parts of the Christmas story. The religious aspect became less popular in the late 19th century and cards became more lavish. At the turn-of-the century European Christmas postcards were introduced and remained popular for the next 10 years. And from then on designs and fashions in Christmas Cards and their greeting messages have developed through the hand-painted cards were popular during the 1920s and heavily influenced by the Art Deco movement, those making fun of poverty and prohibition during the 1930s, to more humorous cards that were introduced in the 1950s. Humor continues to be popular today, as does religious motifs, winter pictures, Father Christmas, or romantic scenes of life in past times.
Searching for the right words to express to others inside a card can be a lot of fun for many people and makes the holiday season all the merrier. Like the card themselves Christmas greeting messages come in various forms. Many are sentimental with expressions of love for a special person, some are witty and some are of a more religious nature. And then there are the plain "Have a Happy Christmas" type messages. The greetings displayed in the card can mean so much to not only the recipient, but to the sender, as well.
Creating Your Own Christmas Cards
For those that like to create their own Christmas greeting messages, many cards can be customized on computers, as well as through specialty print shops such as Ipads. Many businesses and organizations like to have their own Christmas greeting messages inside of their holiday cards that are sent to their customers as a form of personalized "thank you" for their custom during the year. Customizing Christmas greeting messages is a great way to go that extra step and make card selection a bit more personal and can be easily and cheaply achieved at Costco or Kinkos.
In the end, however, it is typically not the card that makes the season special, but the Christmas greeting messages that are within the card so choose them thoughtfully.