Christmas cards — the ones you get in the mail — are still popular

Brian Jolin can still recall the one year he sent out an online Christmas card. The Fort Worth father learned his lesson.

“Our family and friends were not happy,” Jolin said, “and they let us know it.”

Every year, the Jolin family sends themed Christmas cards to about 450 friends, family members and business clients. This year’s card included a reenactment of A Christmas Story. In past years, the family has dressed as Star Wars characters, aliens and even candy canes.

The volume of snail mail has dwindled by more than one-quarter in the past decade, but Christmas and holiday cards are still thriving. Americans are expected to send 15.5 billion cards this year, according to the U.S. Postal Service.

And about half of all millennials, those born from the early 1980s to early 2000s, will send cards, according to the Washington, D.C.-based Greeting Card Association.

“The idea for social expression, in whatever form it comes, is alive and well, and millions of Americans continue to send and receive Christmas cards,” said Peter Doherty, executive director of the association. “There is something about receiving a card in the mail. People want that connection.”

‘It is a keepsake’

The first known Christmas card appeared in London in 1843, when Sir Henry Cole hired an artist to design a holiday card he could send to friends and acquaintances, according to the association’s history.

German immigrant Louis Prang, who is credited with launching the greeting card industry in the United States, first introduced a line of Christmas cards here in 1875. The card included a simple flower design with the words “Merry Christmas.”

Since then, designs have included hand-painted images in the 1920s, hope for peace in the 1940s, abstract art in the 1950s and a slimmer Santa Claus as part of the 1980s fitness craze. Today’s more stylized cards with glossy family portraits, photos of family pets and embossed initials bear little resemblance to the earlier designs.

This year’s crop of cards also includes audio clips and three-dimensional designs that fold out to winter wonderlands, said Doherty. As the numbers of holiday cards have dipped slightly in recent years, Doherty said greeting card businesses are looking for ways to engage customers.

“Companies are creating something that is more than a greeting card. It is a keepsake,” he said. “There is a lot of ingenuity and creativity involved to make products stand out.”

Coming up with new ideas is growing more difficult, Jolin admits. Some years, he has a plan for the card by the previous year’s Christmas. Other years, he is still searching for inspiration at Thanksgiving.

Jolin and his wife began sending out cards soon after they got married, but the ritual took off in 2002 with the birth of their son, Thomas. That year, they sent a card that showed them opening a present with him inside of it.

His wife, Jennifer, and son, Thomas, go along with his plans, although some years more grudgingly than others.

“Our son likes the tradition, if not taking the actual photo,” Jolin said. “And my wife wasn’t a fan of the fishnet stockings this year.”

‘Nothing more personal’

Lucy Hoad of Fort Worth looks forward to sending Christmas cards every December. But this January, Hoad and her husband are expecting their first child and plan to send out a printed birth announcement, so she decided to hand-make 100 cards for friends and family for Christmas, complete with an embossed design, rather than sending out two printed cards.

Every year, Hoad, who teaches middle school at a Fort Worth private school, creates a book with the Christmas cards she and her husband received and displays the books every holiday season.

“I can’t bring myself to throw the cards out, and it’s fun to see our friends’ children grow up every year,” she said. “There is just something special about a tangible piece of mail.”

Christmas and holiday cards are a staple of P.S. The Letter, a Fort Worth store that specializes in invitations and custom stationery. Cindy Kriswell, the resident stationery guru, said the store handles hundreds of orders every holiday season, from simple greeting cards to high-end ones that resemble snowflakes.

Cards are popular with all ages, she said, but particularly among young families who want to show photos of their children.

“People want to connect during the holidays, whether they just write a quick note or send out cards with custom letterpress,” said Kriswell, who has worked at the store for 15 years. “There is nothing more personal than a hand-written note or card. It means something.”

This story was originally published December 22, 2015 at 3:51 PM with the headline "Christmas cards — the ones you get in the mail — are still popular."