The Santa Card

Credit for designing the first Christmas card is given to John Callcott Horsley (1817-1903), a British narrative painter and a Royal Academician. He designed the card in 1843 for his friend Sir Henry Cole, the first director of the Victoria and Albert Museum. The first edition of 1000 cards was copied and hand colored, shows a family party, and displays the legend "A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to You." They were printed by lithography on stiff cardboard, 5 1/8 by 3 1/4 inches. The price was 1s. each. Other designers quickly followed with Christmas cards in England.

But it was not until 1875 that Louis Prang (pictured at right), working from his shop in Roxbury, Massachusetts, printed the first American cards, two years after the penny post card was first authorized by the U.S. Congress. His first design was a simple flower design with "Merry Christmas." The one-cent postage quickly spread the use of the post card as a means of communications – as opposed to the three-cent letter.

The early Santa cards had him in suits of many colors, but in 1885, Prang created his first Santa with a red suit, and in 1886, another Santa Claus card, with Santa in red. It is shown in the thumbnail below.

Santa has remained a popular figure throughout the history of Christmas cards. Two good sites for seeing antique cards include:

• Santalady’s Favorite Antique Post Cards

• Victoria.com, An Antique Marketplace

The most highly recommended site is Greg Livaudais, History of Christmas Cards, The Livaudais Family Home Page [Accessed November 2, 2001]. Note from the site:

"The History of Christmas Cards website is based on the findings of Greg Livaudais using his collection and many published sources. All the cards illustrated, except where noted, are cards in the Livaudais Collection. This collection contains over 3,600 Christmas cards dating from 1876 to current. Much of the text on these pages come from the study and analysis of the cards in this collection."

Also see

• Christmastime Celebration

• Gabriella Oldham, ed., Old-Fashioned Christmas Cards (New York: Dover Publications, 1989)

• Suzanne Presley, ed., Old-Fashioned Santa Claus Cards (New York: Dover Publications, 1990)

• Thomas Nast, Thomas Nast Christmas Cards (New York: Dover Publications, 1985)

• Barbara Hallman Kissinger, Christmas Past (Gretna: Pelican Publishing Co., 2005). Contains Christmas cards and other images & illustrations of Christmas.

• Bevis Hillier, Greetings from Christmas Past (London: The Herbert Press, 1982).

I know that I've got another excellent Christmas card book, but I can't lay my hands on it this morning. I'll keep looking and update this page when I find it.