Thanksgiving
Always observed the fourth Thursday in November
| Industry-wide, Americans exchange about 25 million Thanksgiving cards each year.
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| 81 percent of Thanksgiving cards are mailed, the highest percentage for any season. |
| About 60 percent of Thanksgiving cards are given to family (close and extended) and about 28 percent of Thanksgiving cards are given to friends. |
| Increasingly, companies are sending Thanksgiving cards to business clients and prospects as a way to thank them and extend early holiday greetings not tied to specific religious or cultural observances, according to Hallmark research. |
| Hallmark made its first Thanksgiving cards in the early 1920s. |
2008 Product Features
- Hallmark offers nearly 300 Thanksgiving cards, including:
o Cards With Sound that play popular songs and audio clips from movies and TV shows.
o Recordable Cards With Music that enable the sender to record a 10-second message that plays before a pre-recorded song,
o Lenticular cards that play a fully animated two-second scene when you tip the card from side to side. Some of these cards also include sound.
- New this year, Hallmark will donate 1 percent of net shipments of Hallmark-branded and Connections from Hallmark-branded Thanksgiving cards to Feeding America™, a national network of 200 local food banks that distributes more than 2 billion pounds of food annually. Feeding America is the nation’s largest charitable hunger-relief organization, providing food assistance to 25 million hungry Americans each year.
- Cards are available for family relationships including parents, children, siblings, grandparents, great grandparents, grandchildren, great grandchildren, aunts and uncles, nieces and nephews.
- A wide variety of cards are appropriate for sending “across the miles.”
- Hallmark Gold Crown® stores feature a variety of ceramic tabletop items and other home décor and gift items for the fall season and Thanksgiving.
- Clean-up after any Thanksgiving or any fall gathering is easy with Hallmark paper partyware featuring fall images such as turkeys, leaves, fruits and vegetables.
- For football fans following their favorite teams on Turkey Day, Hallmark NFL party designs get the gang into the spirit with minimal mess.
Holiday History
The tradition of celebrating thanks dates back nearly 400 years to a three-day harvest festival celebrated in 1621 by the pilgrims and Native Americans at Plymouth, Mass.
President George Washington issued the first national Thanksgiving proclamation in 1789, the year of his inauguration, and again in 1795. On Oct. 3, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln declared a national day of Thanksgiving to be observed on the last Thursday in November, and every president after Lincoln followed suit. In 1941, a joint congressional resolution officially set the date as the fourth Thursday in November.
The Hallmark Archives contain Thanksgiving cards that date back to the late 1800s, but Thanksgiving cards were not widely exchanged until the end of World War I.
In Stores
Available at Hallmark Gold Crown® stores nationwide and wherever Hallmark cards are sold. Use the store locator on Hallmark.com to find the nearest Hallmark Gold Crown store.