As a regular institution, however, it can be traced back only to the sixteenth century. During the Middle Ages it suddenly appears in Strassburg; it maintained itself along the Rhine for two hundred years, when suddenly at the beginning of the nineteenth century the fashion spread all over Germany, and by fifty years later had conquered Christendom.
W. S. Walsh in Curiosities of Popular Customs
(condensed)
Origin of the Christmas Card
THE Christmas Card is the legitimate descendant of the "school pieces" or "Christmas pieces" which were popular from the beginning to the middle of the nineteenth century. These were sheets of writing-paper sometimes surrounded with those hideous and elaborate pen flourishes forming birds, scrolls, etc., so unnaturally dear to the hearts of writing masters, and sometimes headed with copper-plate engravings, plain or colored. These were used by school boys at the approach of holidays for carefully written letters exploiting the progress they had made in composition and chirography. Charity boys were large purchasers of these pieces, says one writer, and at Christmas time used to take them round their parish to show and at the same time solicit a trifle.
The Christmas Card proper had its tentative origin in 1846. Mr. Joseph Cundall, a London artist, claims to have issued the first in that year. It was printed in lithography, colored by hand, and was of the usual size of a lady's card.
Not until 1862, however, did the custom obtain any foothold. Then experiments were made with cards of the size of an ordinary carte de visite, inscribed simply "A Merry Christmas" and "A Happy New Year." After that came to be added robins and holly branches, embossed figures and landscapes. "I have the original designs before me now," wrote "Luke Limner" (John Leighton) to the London Publishers' Circular, Dec. 31, 1883: "they were produced by Goodall & Son. Seeing a growing want and the great sale obtained abroad, this house produced (1868) a Little Red Riding Hood, a Hermit and his Cell, and many other subjects in which snow and the robin played a part."
W. S. Walsh in Curiosities of Popular Customs
The Yule Clog
