Christmas Cards

Christmas is the largest card-sending holiday in the United States – approximately 1.8 billion cards are sent annually.

Hallmark provides more than 2,700 Hallmark Christmas card designs, including more than 2,000 individual Christmas cards, more than 380 boxed-card selections, more than 100 Mahogany Christmas cards for African-American consumers, and more than 300 Hallmark Sinceramente cards for Hispanic consumers.

In addition, Hallmark.com offers more than 400 unique designs, available online at Hallmark.com, that can be customized with photos and personal messages, including photo cards, Cards with Sound, invitations, announcements and thank-you notes, as well as e-cards.

Annual e-card sending industry-wide is estimated at less than 300 million. More than 20 paper cards are sent for every one e-card.

New Hallmark Mobile Greetings provides several ways to send holiday greetings via cell phones.

According to Hallmark research, nearly three-fourths of consumers who send holiday cards do so because they know how good it feels when they receive a holiday greeting.

Hallmark made its first Christmas cards in 1915, five years after the founding of the company.

2009 Hallmark Christmas Card News

DVD Greetings cards include a card with coordinating DVD. The sender follows the included instructions using the template on the DVD to create a customized slide show set to music using their personal photographs. The recipient receives a beautifully designed card and professional-quality DVD slide show. DVD Greetings are sold individually and in boxed sets.
First-Class Sound Cards offer audio clips of traditional Christmas favorites featuring mostly instrumental music. The cards are smaller than standard Cards With Sound, and the song clips are shorter, but the cards can be mailed with just one first class stamp.
Large-size Cards With Motion are 8-by-8 inches and feature favorite characters such as Tinkerbell and Peanuts® in 3-D.
Some Cards With Sound, which play Christmas songs by original artists, now feature the added surprise of pop-up motion when they are opened. Songs include “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas” by Bing Crosby and “Frosty the Snowman” by Kimberly Locke.
Hallmark has added music to some of the popular Between You & Me Christmas cards, which feature longer, more intimate, me-to-you messages.
Make-Your-Own-Card kits include six cards with designed envelopes and various attachments to create your own look.
Convenience Kits include 18 cards with coordinating designed envelopes, seals and address labels.
Self-Mailer cards feature 10 postal-ready cards and seals. The sender simply signs the card, folds where indicated, and addresses, stamps and seals the outside.

Hallmark has a Christmas card to suit practically every need:

Prices begin at just 99 cents.
Cards With Sound play Christmas songs and audio clips from holiday movies and TV shows such as Elf, A Christmas Story, Frosty the Snowman, and A Charlie Brown Christmas.
Hallmark also offers boxed sets of Cards With Sound.
Recordable Cards enable the sender to record a 10-second message for the recipient. Some also include a pre-recorded song that plays after the message.
Big Time Sound cards measure 11-by-11 inches and pack powerful sound quality.
Cards with Motion play a fully animated two-second scene when tipped from side to side. Some of these cards also include sound.
For the season of light, Hallmark offers cards that twinkle, glow and glimmer – sometimes in time to music.
Many Hallmark gift-card holder greeting cards feature designs that reflect the types of gifts, stores and services associated with the most popular gift cards – such as dining, theater, or music – as well as many hot properties like Peanuts® and Shrek.
More than a dozen photo-holder boxed card designs in a variety of styles accommodate 4-by-6-inch photos and enable families to share holiday memories.
Hot licensed properties such as Thomas Kinkade, Peanuts®, Disney Princesses, Hannah Montana, Jonas Brothers, High School Musical, A Christmas Story and Happy Feet are featured throughout the line.
Hallmark offers a card for just about every sending need, from active military personnel to the doctor, postal carrier, school bus driver or hairdresser. Hallmark Gold Crown® stores provide the largest selection of “niche-caption” cards with nearly 230 niche cards this season; 67 of the designs are new in 2009 such as pediatrician, scout leader, Bible study friend and Sunday school teacher.

Many Hallmark Christmas cards are environmentally friendly:

Paper for all Hallmark individual and boxed Christmas cards is sourced from sustainably managed forests.
The entire Shoebox holiday card line uses recycled paper.
Hallmark’s 2009 Christmas boxed-card line reduced the size of packaging to feature only the front of the card, rather than a larger box that features both the card front as well as the entire envelope with an open flap, reducing packaging materials by about one-third.
New Self-Mailer cards feature 10 postal-ready cards that can be folded and mailed without the need for an envelope.

Hallmark meets the needs of ethnic consumers:

Mahogany offers more than 100 individual Christmas cards, plus 15 boxed cards designed for African-American consumers. The line includes traditional, religious and humorous designs, Cards With Sound, and money holders that are gift-card compatible.
Hallmark Sinceramente offers more than 300 individual Christmas cards, plus 19 boxed cards for Hispanic consumers. The cards include Spanish editorial with English translations on back, bilingual messages, money/gift-card holders and cards that feature sound or the ability to record your own message. New this year, two boxed card assortments feature 12 Spanish-language and 12 English-language cards in each box.

Hallmark cards do their part during the season of giving:

Hallmark’s partnership with UNICEF continues this year with individual and boxed card designs. Hallmark pays a portion of the net wholesale sales of the cards to the U.S. Fund for UNICEF.
Hallmark (PRODUCT) RED™ offering includes individual and boxed card designs. Hallmark pays a portion of the net wholesale sales of the cards to the Global Fund to help fight AIDS in Africa.

Hallmark.com also offers a selection of unique Christmas greeting cards:

The Holiday Card Center on Hallmark.com also offers a selection of 400 unique Christmas greeting cards, invitations, announcements and thank-you notes that can be customized with personal photos and messages, as well as more than 100 Christmas e-cards.
Personalized paper cards have several new features this year:
- A new value postcard does not require an envelope and costs only 28 cents to mail.
- 20 new premium designs feature a foil process on linen paper.
- An Address Requester capability makes collecting and updating friends and families addresses simple. Once the information is uploaded, Hallmark will address, stamp and mail the cards.
- Hallmark.com is partnering with UNICEF to offer 12 Card and Photo Card designs in 2009. Hallmark pays a portion of the net wholesale sales of the cards to the U.S. Fund for UNICEF.
Many Christmas e-cards offer premium features. These include popular Christmas songs such as “White Christmas” performed by Bing Crosby, and clips from licensed TV and Hollywood characters including I Love Lucy and Scooby-Doo. While some Hallmark e-cards are free, premium e-cards may be purchased individually or by a subscription plan, in which users pay $9.99 to send unlimited premium e-cards for one year.

Hallmark Mobile Greetings:

Hallmark Mobile Greetings is a new product that allows mobile device users to instantly send, and receive greetings via their cell phones. Mobile Greetings combine the immediacy of a text message with creative design and editorial, and also allow the sender to add a personal message.
Hallmark offers more than 500 Hallmark Mobile Greetings, including 20 for Christmas.
The line also includes fun, anytime holiday greetings for needs such as Black Friday shopping, the stress of seeing the in-laws, holiday travels, and more.

Holiday History

Englishman Henry Cole conceived the idea of Christmas cards in 1843. Too busy to write a personal holiday greeting, Cole hired well-known London artist, John Calcott Horsley, to design a card he could send to all his acquaintances.

Louis Prang, a German immigrant, is credited with bringing the idea of Christmas cards to America. In 1875 he printed a card that showed Killarney roses and the words “Merry Christmas.”