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Sir Henry Cole, a British inventor and civil servant, produced the first commercial holiday cards in 1843. He commissioned an artist named John Horsley to illustrate them, and Cole obliged by drawing a three-panel image that included a family raising their glasses for a toast in the middle above the words “A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you.” Cole sold over 2000 of the cards for a shilling a piece that year.

Other cards soon followed, although they didn’t look like the cards we’d think of today. Rather than having winter or religious themes, early Christmas cards depicted flowers and fairies and other images that looked forward to the coming of spring.

The first holiday cards in America weren’t offered until more than three decades later. In 1875 Louis Prang became the first printer to offer cards in America. The advent of the postcard brought an end to elaborate Victorian-style cards for awhile, but by the 1920s, cards with envelopes had returned.

Christmas cards have been continually evolving and changing since then. During the World Wars, patriotic themes were popular, while in the 1950s, cartoon illustrations and cards with risque humor caught on. Today you can get holiday cards with a wide range of images and greetings. Nostalgic, sentimental, and religious images continue to be popular, and, now you can also purchase many “unusual” Christmas cards that can do double-duty as Christmas letter, calendars or tree ornaments. Many companies choose to send out corporate holiday cards these days as a way to keep in touch with their customers during the holiday season. Today’s Christmas cards can be anything from humorous to religious, simple to ornate, small to large, and everything in between.

Unfortunately, sending out printed Christmas cards is a tradition that’s in danger of fading out as more high-tech options become available and more popular. In recent decades, the number of cards sent during the holidays has been declining. The estimated number of cards received by American households dropped from 29 in 1987 to 20 in 2004. Despite the decline, printed cards are still popular – 1.9 billion cards were sent in the U.S. in 2005 alone. And new services that send cards out for you are making it easier to combine the popularity of printed cards with the ease of online ordering.

So even though the tradition of holiday greeting cards may be changing, it should be with us for a long time to come.

More Christmas Letter Examples: 2003 – 2000 – 1999

Christmas Letter Examples
Howard Family Christmas Letter 2002 – Santa Sneaks In

Twas the night before Christmas, and Cayne and Lisa were lounging in their family room. Cayne stretched out on the sofa. Lisa took the La-Z-Boy. “You think he’s asleep?” Cayne asked. Lisa listened and nodded. “He was out like a light when I put him in his bed.”

“Well, he should be. He’s been up since 5:30 today.” Cayne pretended to be upset, but her voice betrayed the humor.

Lisa smiled. At two years old, Chase was a non-stop bundle of energy. No matter how little sleep he got, on most nights he still had enough energy to resist bedtime by staying awake and talking for an hour. Tonight was the exception. He had gone to bed almost instantly. Well, perhaps instantly wasn’t exactly the word. First Mommy had to read “Bear Snores On,” or, as Chase called it, “Bear Nores On,” and then it was time for “Rumble in the Jungle” (also known in two-year-old slang as “Jungle Jungle”). After Lisa finished reading those books and put him in bed, he had to recite his list of people who loved him. And then he fell asleep. So maybe it wasn’t instant, but he did fall asleep quickly rather than talking in his crib.

Now Cayne and Lisa were relaxing in their new house, enjoying the quiet. “Wow. Can you believe we’ve already been here for six months?” Lisa said, looking around the house that still had bare walls and a few as-yet-unpacked boxes stuffed in closets, even though it was all decorated for the holidays.

“Yeah, it’s gone by so quick. But this totally feels like home now. I can hardly remember living in the condo.” Their new home was a four-room, two-story house in a new development in Pittsburg, and they had already been in the new place for six months.

Lisa looked around. “Did you hear that?” she asked.

“What? I didn’t hear anything.” Cayne said. Lisa listened again, didn’t seem to hear anything, and went on. “It’s nice to just sit around and relax for awhile, huh?” she asked. It seemed like life had been flying by for months.

The year has started off fairly slow. They had taken a short trip to a wild animal park early in the year and spent the weekend in African tent cabins. Very fun and relaxing. And then life went into fast forward. They decided to sell their condo and sold it within a week of placing it on the market. Then they held their breath as they waited to see if they’d be able to get a house in the new development. The homes were selling so quickly that the developer had resorted to a lottery system. They ultimately were able to purchase a house that another person had lost – but not until they engaged in a frantic race to close in record time and ended up in a last-minute panic when it appeared they needed to be out of their condo on Saturday but wouldn’t be able to move into their new place until Monday. Thanks to the efforts of an angelic title officer, it all worked out. But Lisa had nightmares about it for weeks.

Now they could sit in their family room and relax. Cayne walked to the shelves Lisa’s dad had built and turned on the stereo. Melissa Etheridge began to sing.

“Your dad did a really nice job on those shelves,” Cayne said as she sat down again.

“Not to mention everything else he did,” Lisa added. Her dad had been a huge help in getting the new house into shape. He spent numerous weekends putting in window coverings, a sprinkler system, garden plants, and shelves. Chase loved waking up in the morning and seeing Grandpa working outside in the yard. “I’m just glad everything’s pretty much done now,” Lisa said. “I’ve got enough stuff to do at work these days.”

In May, Lisa had been promoted to a new position in the sales department and her team doubled from five people to ten. And then all hell broke loose; the workload quadrupled virtually overnight and continued to grow exponentially every month. By November, they had literally increased workload by 20x, even though overall headcount went down.

“There it is again. Did you hear that?” Lisa asked. Cayne shook her head. “Nope. What’d it sound like?”

Lisa watched Millie slink into the room as she answered. “It sounded like… bells.” She shrugged. “But now I don’t hear it.” The cat looked at the humans, but didn’t come. She was still too shy. Millie, (short for Milagro, or “miracle” in Spanish) became the newest feline member of the household after she had been hit by a car. When Cayne and Lisa found her, the all-black kitten was attempting to drag herself across the road. She couldn’t have been more than six weeks old, and her amazing ability to escape permanent damage from the car earned the feral cat her new home and nickname.

It had definitely been a busy year. To get away from it all, they had taken a trip to Orlando. Chase’s favorite part was visiting “Kickey” Mouse’s world and Disney’s Animal Kingdom, while the highlight for Cayne and Lisa was visiting an aquatic park where they got to swim with a dolphin named Lester. And Lisa was thrilled to visit Aunt April and her cousin Dawn Marie during the trip and just hours before Dawn Marie went into labor with her first baby, a boy. A few weeks after they returned home, Chase celebrated his second birthday, and then in December he was the ring bearer for Cayne’s brother’s wedding.

Lisa got up. “Well, I’m ready to hit the sack. How ‘bout you?” Cayne got up, too. “Yep. I’ll be right behind you,” she said. Lisa headed upstairs, while Cayne lagged a few minutes behind to turn off the stereo and unplug all the Christmas lights.

It was only then that the faint tinkling of bells once again sounded outside. The women never saw or heard the man dressed in red as he slid down their chimney and placed presents under the tree, but as he jumped in his sleigh and took to the sky, they heard a voice cry out, “Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!”

More Christmas Letter Examples: 2003 – 2002 – 1999

Christmas Letter Examples
Howard Family Christmas Letter 2000 – Interoffice Memo

OFFICE OF THE NORTH POLE
INTEROFFICE MEMO

From: I. Jingle, Chief Elf
To: S. Claus, Chief Christmas Guy
Re: Extra Nice, Not Naughty

Santa:

Just a short note to let you know that there’s a new person on your California route this year. The big news from Lisa and Cayne in the new millennium was the birth of their baby in October. He’s a real cute little fellow named Chase. He was born October 6 and is keeping his parents busy because he’s still not sleeping through the night. But they don’t really care. He’s so incredibly cute and lovable that they are having the time of their lives (when they’re awake, that is!). All he has to do is smile and their hearts just melt. We heard from a little elf that Chase’s favorite thing to do these days is to have someone hold him up so he can stand on his own legs and look around.

The biggest event in his life this year was his baptism on Dec. 17, which all the family attended. He’s also currently adjusting to his mom Lisa being back at work part-time. She went back the week after Thanksgiving, when he was eight weeks old, and she’s going back full-time in January. She’s still working at the same Internet company. This year she got promoted to senior editor, so she now has a team of five editors working for her. Their job is to find, classify and write two-sentence reviews of all the shopping sites on the Web. She really enjoys it, but hates being away from Chase all day long. Her commute has stretched to a horrendous 4 ½ hours each day. She recently bought a Razor scooter to shave a few minutes off her trip by making it quicker to get to and from BART to the office, and she’s planning to change her work hours to 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. so she has more time at home in the evenings.

Chase is lucky, however, to have his other mom at home all day. Cayne gets the pleasure of spending all day with the little tyke, but she also has to get up with him in the middle of the night and stay up with him late at night so Lisa can get enough sleep for work. So everyone has been a little sleep deprived. Cayne’s feeling better than she might have felt a few months ago, though. She was diagnosed with sleep apnea, a condition that causes a person to stop breathing hundreds of time a night, just before Chase was born. She’s now using a forced-air machine at night that makes it impossible for her to stop breathing, so she has a lot more energy than she did beforehand. She was also taking exercise swim classes this year that helped her back a lot, and she’s planning to continue those next year.

We’ve heard that the family won’t be leaving out any cookies and milk for you or carrots for the reindeer this year because they’re too tired to do much other than deal with the baby. They barely got around to writing Christmas cards, and they didn’t even add personal messages to them because they were afraid they’d never get them done in time. So don’t expect any treats for Rudolph. But just check out the photos of the little cutely below and I’m sure you’ll understand why Cayne and Lisa are devoting all their time to him.

Merry Christmas!

More Christmas Letter Examples: 2003 – 2002 – 2000

Christmas Letter Examples
Howard Family Christmas Letter 1999 – The Crash-Landed Reindeer

‘Twas the week before Christmas when all through the sky, a stream of lights passed, then crashed before our eyes. Cayne and I pulled our car to the side of the dark road, grabbed a flashlight and headed into the dark field and over the hill where the lights had disappeared. Imagine our surprise when we saw a giant red sleigh with a badly mangled runner.

A reindeer was pacing nearby, kicking at the ground with his hoof. He hadn’t noticed us. “Darn it, darn it, darn it!” he was exclaiming as earth flew up around his hooves. “Why do these things always happen to me”

The deer was obviously distraught. I nudged Cayne and whispered, “Go talk to him and see what’s wrong.”

“Me?!? Why don’t you talk to him?” she said.

“Because you’re good with animals. Go see what’s wrong.” I pushed her forward. She reluctantly approached the creature. I followed a few footsteps behind. “Hello!” Cayne called out. The deer turned to look at us. Suddenly the animal seemed larger. MUCH larger. And those 10-point antlers didn’t help. Cayne must have been thinking the same thing because she stopped so abruptly that I ran into her back. She whispered over her shoulder with a hint of I-told-you-so in her voice: “You still think we should ask him what’s wrong?”

Before I had a chance to answer, the buck was in front of us. Those things really DO fly, I thought. “Oh boy, I’m in trouble now,” he fretted. “Please don’t tell Santa you saw me. We’re not supposed to be seen by people. If he finds out that I was fraternizing with the humans, well…” He trailed off and hung his head. “That would be the end of my dream,” he said, hanging his head so low that I thought those antlers would surely tip him over. “Of course, my dream’s just a joke anyway,” he said.

I hated to see anyone – even a flying reindeer – in such a state. “Hey, don’t talk that way,” I said.

“But everything I do turns out wrong!” he said, and I was sure I saw a tear in his eye. “Bad things are ALWAYS happening to me! All I want to do is get a chance to be on the back-up team for Santa’s sleigh, but I just can’t seem to get it right. That’s why I was out here tonight – I was practicing for the try-outs tomorrow night. Blitzen gave me special permission to take the extra sleigh. But once Santa finds out I wrecked it, I’m history.”

“It sure might look that way,” Cayne said, “but sometimes ‘bad things’ turn out to be blessings in disguise.”

“Yeah,” I chimed in. “We had some pretty ‘bad’ things happen this year, but in the end they all turned out for the best. For instance, I lost my job at [an insurance company] in February due to budget cuts.” The reindeer looked sympathetic. “But in a way it was a blessing because I absolutely hated that job. I only had about 15 minutes of work every day. It was terrible. But I had so much free time that I spent hours surfing the Net and teaching myself HTML so I could design Web pages.”

“So after she lost her job,” Cayne continued with the story, “she had a couple of temp jobs. The first one was boring, but it paid the bills. The second one was great because she really enjoyed the people. Unfortunately, they couldn’t pay her enough money, but they let her take time off to go to interviews.”

“Yeah,” I cut in. “And because my job at [the insurance company] was so boring and I spent so much time Web surfing, I got a great job as a search editor at [an internet company]. Now I get paid to surf the Web all day long. My job is to help people find things on the Internet. It’s a lot of fun. You wouldn’t believe the weird stuff you can find on the Net! And I have better pay, better working conditions and better benefits.”

The reindeer’s ears had perked up. “Hmm. That’s interesting.” He seemed encouraged, but then his face fell again and he whined, “But that’s just one thing. I have bad things happen to me all the time. Just last week I tripped over an elf’s power cord and knocked out electricity to the entire team working on Pokemon products.”

I winced. That was pretty serious. A Christmas morning without Pokemon could be a disaster. But I wanted him to see the silver lining in the cloud. “Well, how about this? This summer Cayne ended up in the hospital and thought she might have to have surgery on her back again. But she was okay after a couple of days and was inspired to go on a diet. So now she’s feeling better, has cut back on some of her pain medication and just finished a semester of school. And she’s still doing great on her diet. She’s already lost 50 lbs.”

The reindeer nodded. He looked from us to the sleigh and back again. “You really think that this could turn out OK?”

“Of course!” Cayne assured him. “There are a lot worse things in life than a wrecked sleigh.” She looked at me. “Lisa’s appendix nearly ruptured in November, and she had to have emergency surgery. That’s definitely worse than a wrecked sleigh. She was out of work for a week and worked at home for another week.”

The reindeer was beginning to look more hopeful. “Wow. Does stuff like this happen to you all the time?”

Cayne and I exchanged a look and rolled our eyes. “Thank God – no,” I said. “But when it does, it always seems to turn out okay. For instance, three weeks after my appendectomy I was well enough to go to Disneyland with Cayne, her mom, Joyce and Stefanie for Thanksgiving.”

“Our experience with a skunk named Petunia was another event that some people might think was a ‘bad’ experience,” Cayne said. “We got her as a pet from a woman who couldn’t keep her, but she and our cats couldn’t get along. We didn’t know what to do. Then we found her a great home near Sacramento with a nice couple who didn’t have any cats. So in the end it all worked out for the best.”

The reindeer was nodding. He had a new light in his eyes. “Well, maybe this will turn out okay. Maybe I can still get a chance to pull Santa’s sleigh. I better call for help.” We went back to the sled, used his nose to flip open a satellite phone mounted on the edge of the sleigh and push the single large button on the keypad. In a moment a voice answered and the reindeer spoke. “Hi, Blitzen, it’s Joe. I crashed. I need a lift.” We were standing a respectful distance away and couldn’t hear the response from the other end. A few moments later the reindeer returned to us. “Thanks for the pep talk,” he said. “I hope your millennium is less eventful.”

“Hey, like we said, everything turned out okay. It was a good year for us,” Cayne said, and I nodded in agreement. “We hope 2000 is even more eventful,” she said with a mischievous grin. “In a very good way…”

A week later, on Christmas Eve, we were awakened by the sound of hooves on the roof and the patio. Cayne and I got out of bed and looked out. There was Joe. He was decked out in a bright red harness with shiny gold bells. He was grinning ear to ear.

“You did it!” I exclaimed. “You’re pulling Santa’s sleigh.”

The reindeer grinned sheepishly. “You were right,” he said. “While I was waiting for Blitzen to pick me up, I figured out what was wrong with the sleigh and fixed it. It turns out that sled has had a problem for quite some time and none of the mechanics knew how to repair it. Once Santa saw what I had done, he said he needed someone like me on his team. So here I am.” The reindeer grinned again. “I guess sometimes you have to crash before you can fly.” With that, he leaped off the balcony and flew into the night.

May all the “bad” things in your life have a happy ending this year.

Merry Christmas & A Happy Millennial New Year!

1. Make sure there’s enough room for your letter. Amateur designers sometimes get carried away with their stationery artwork and forget to leave enough room for text. Be sure to pick something that will give you enough space to put your entire family letter on one or two pages.

2. Choose a light-colored background. A dark background will make it difficult for people to read your Christmas letter. Most professionally designed letterhead available at office supply and stationery stores has a light background designed for easy readability, but watch out for dark or bright colors when shopping for letterhead designed from amateur art.

3. Pick a paper with a simple border. Unless you’re comfortable creating multiple text boxes or manipulating tabs or indents in your word processing software, you’ll want to choose Christmas stationery that has even borders, not a design that juts into the main writing area of the paper in multiple places. Best choices are letterheads with banners across the top or bottom, with a border design that has a similar width around the whole page, or with an image in one corner so you can format most of the text around it.

You may also want to try using Christmas letter templates, rather than preprinted stationery. Templates such as the ones we offer here allow you to create your annual holiday letter in a Word document that has already been set up for your text. So there’s no guessing what the final product will look like when you print it on stationery from the store. See our Christmas letter templates here.

He glanced up. “You can fix that. Christmas is coming – perfect time for a family letter.” He returned to work, leaving me to ponder how to begin such a project.

For those of you who, like me, are not natural letter-writers, below is a list of family Christmas letter ideas. Hope they help if you decide to start a new tradition this year.

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words!
While you can fit a few photos into a newsletter, more is better for your family Christmas letter. Try including a CD of favorite photos and special events. For more pizzazz, try using online services such as Smilebox. You can pick out a background and song to lend emotion to your slideshow. Then have fun and create! Include a copy with each mailed newsletter (or at least with Grandma and Grandpa’s). You can also share your creation with email recipients online.

The Countdown!
David Letterman loves them, Johnny Carson loved them, and we all love them too. The Top Ten List is the hit of the show! Include it in your newsletter or family Christmas letter. Ideas for lists range from sports activities for the kids to best moments on vacation. Include baby’s top ten new words, or your kindergartner’s top ten favorite new books, movies or games. The top ten dumbest/cutest things said in the household is sure to be a hit, but keep careful notes through-out the year to make sure you get them all down!

Make Them Laugh!
Ask each family member to include their favorite joke, riddle or pun. Sharing humor is always a family favorite. For humorous holiday jokes, search online or visit Funny-Christmas.com.

Use a Template!
Trying to format everything just right can lead to frustration, un-Christmas-like obscenities and un-mailed letters. Using a template makes layout easy and allows for more time to write and less to try to fit-it-all-in. You can search for printable Christmas letterhead online or for less than $4, download an awesome Christmas letter template right here at Christmas Letter Tips.com. Using these formats, you can easily summarize important evens of the year, insert family photos and get it done in time to get it mailed. Or, to save a tree and ensure on-time delivery, email your newsletter.

However you choose to share your lives with family members far away, it will be appreciated all year long. Keeping the family tie alive may be the best gift you give or receive!

Mailing letters is fun with Christmas address labels. Thanks to the Internet and the advanced technology available, you can now create your own Christmas address label in a matter of minutes. Christmas address labels are great even when it is not Christmas time – have you ever heard the phrase “Christmas in July”?

There are scores of Web resources that allow you to customize your Christmas address label. You can insert images of your family members and choose to have your background and design format while ordering for Christmas address labels. Most of the online resources also have ready-made templates that you can choose from, for designing and ordering your own Christmas address labels. All you have to do is to go through a series of simple steps and your Christmas address label would be created in a matter of minutes. Once you order them, they would be delivered to you in 6-8 days at the most.

You can show off your whole family or announce your new home through Christmas address labels. It helps if you have a good sense of humor, because humor really helps in creating your own distinct identity. Christmas address labels are also great for use in workplaces. Your letter would create a favorable impression, even without the envelope being opened. Such is the impact of a good Christmas address label with a humorous and/or inspirational message.

Christmas address labels are enormously popular throughout the world. This has naturally led to increased competition within the label printing business. The good news for customers is this competition has resulted in increased discounts for customers. If you were to surf the Internet for Christmas address labels, you can find online merchants screaming for your attention with fabulous discount offers. You can also find reviews offering you insights into the overall quality of each merchant’s product.

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The US Postal Service has been issuing special Christmas postage stamps since 1963, when it released its first holiday stamp with an image of a Christmas wreath and candles. Now the USPS issues Hanukkah and Kwanzaa stamps, too, as well as both religious and secular images for Christmas.

But digital technology means you no longer have to wait for the United States Postal Service to issue their official holiday stamps, nor do you have to settle for the images the print. Now you can make your own (see the post on how to create personalized USPS stamps) or you can buy great postage stamps created by thousands of artists around the country.

Just hop over to Zazzle and you’ll be dazzled by the variety of postage available for Christmas, other holidays and special occasions and everyday use. Here are just a few of the designs you’ll find there. You can buy any of these designs or even use the design as the basis for your own customized version of what you see here. (For instance, you could add “Merry Christmas from the Smiths” to any image here, and you can do the same with their selection of Christmas cards, letterhead, ornaments, shirts and more.)

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