Santa...

This is one of a number of cards received to date, which puts me under pressure as mine are still sitting on the dining room table waiting to be written...

To avoid having to sit down and actually begin the task of writing mine, I investigated where the tradition of sending Christmas cards came from and found that it was started in the UK in 1843 by a civil servant who was keen to promote the new "Public Post Office" and saw an opportunity! Cards became popular, partly because they could be posted in an unsealed envelope for one halfpenny, half the price of an ordinary letter.

In 1915 John C Hall and two of his brothers create Hallmark cards and produced commercially produced cards at a price people could afford... the rest is history!