I Guess By Now Most Of Us Would Have Sent Or Received Christmas Cards,

but before 1843 each one would have been hand written,

the commercial Christmas card as we know it originated in London in 1843, and this is a copy of it above, that winter, Sir Henry Cole, a civil servant who helped organise the Great Exhibition and develop the Victoria and Albert Museum, decided he was too busy to write individual Christmas greetings to his family, friends and business colleagues, He asked his friend, the painter John Callcott Horsley, to design a card with an image and brief greeting that he could mail instead,

Horsley designed a triptych, with the two side panels depicting good deeds (clothing the naked and feeding the hungry) and the centre panel showing a family Christmas party, the inclusion of booze at this party got Cole and Horsley an earful from the British Temperance Movement, at the bottom of the centre panel was the inscription "A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to You."

the card was lithographed on 5 1/8" X 3 1/4" stiff cardboard in dark sepia and then coloured by hand, an edition of 1,000 cards was printed and sold at Felix Summerly's Treasure House in London for a shilling each, not a cheap thing in those days,

this of course opened the flood gates to all manner of cards being printed,

 from the sublime,

to the quiet frankly ridiculous, the Victorians loved natural history, which might explain why a mouse rides a lobster on this 1880 card, which wishes the recipient 'Paix, Joie, Sante, Bonheur,' or 'Peace, Joy, Health and Happiness',

 but even in those days it was cool to be foxy,

but not all Christmas cards we happy and cheerful as this one from the State Library at Queensland shows, it seems like Christmas in Australia could be very unpleasant, revenge of the mutant turkeys or there are rabid emus on the lose!