by Hellianna Pappamichalis

hristmas cards: two English words with Greek origin. The word “Christmas” comes from the Greek word “Χριστός” which means “the chosen one” whereas the word “card” comes  from the word “χάρτης”which means a layer of papyrus in ancient Greek.

These two words came together and became a bright and festive Christmas symbol in 1843 England-the Christmas card. Its designer  and  godfather was a public servant, Henry Cole. Mr Cole had undertaken the organising of the Public Post Office but he also created one product that even the poor could afford to post.

That Christmas, about 1000 cards were sold. All of them had the same three pictures printed on: Christians helping the poor and in the centre of the card, a family enjoying a rich dinner! If you happen to own one of those cards today, you could sell it for thousands of pounds!

Soon, sending Christmas cards became popular all over Europe. The most common pictures printed on them were the Nativity, children,  snowy landscapes and the robin. The first mass producer of Christmas cards started its business–where else but- in America at the beginning of  the 20^th century.

At the same time, a postman in Denmark thought of using  Christmas cards for charities. Today in England, 580 million pounds are raised for charities thanks to Christmas cards sales.

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source:

http://www.whychristmas.com/customs/cards.shtml