Christmas Cards
Facts
- Christmas is the largest card-sending holiday in the United States with approximately 1.6 billion cards sent annually.
- Hallmark provides more than 2,700 Hallmark Christmas card designs, including more than 1,800 individual Christmas cards, more than 250 boxed-card selections, more than 100 Mahogany Christmas cards for African-American consumers, and more than 290 Hallmark Sinceramente cards for Hispanic consumers.
- Hallmark made its first Christmas cards in 1915, five years after the founding of the company.
- 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.
- In addition, Hallmark.com offers more than 950 unique designs 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.
2011 Hallmark Christmas Card News
- The widest variety of new greeting card innovations can be found at Hallmark Gold Crown® stores and include:
- Simply Christmas is a new simple photography collection that embodies the true sweetness of Christmas. Each card serves as a warm wish for the season, and each photo captures a small, but memorable moment of Christmastime.
- A collection for kids will be available with messages from "Happy Feet", Prep & Landing®, and the Peanuts® gang from A Charlie Brown Christmas. These cards feature a mixture of exciting innovation, including light with sound, 3-D glasses and bonus videos accessed through QR Codes®.
- In 2011, Hallmark continues with the success of the Thomas Kinkade designs. This year, Hallmark has received a piece of exclusive Kinkade artwork to feature on a card.
- Boutique Cards are a beautiful offering featuring a range of fun photography and elegant designs. Captions include anyone, mom, daughter, love and parents.
- Christmas Cards with Cool Extras showcase three new innovation formats including Fiber Optics with Sound, Extreme Paper Mechanics with Sound and Push Button Motion with Sound.
- Relationships are the name of the game with many new card lines available to tell that special person in your life how important they are. The Son and Daughter Collection is beautifully-handcrafted and features strong design elements on a red background – sure to capture attention. These cards are perfect to send to a son or daughter and their family. The Special Family Collection features messages for family members such as godchild, mom and dad from daughter, and even great grandma.
- A Peanuts® Card collection is perfect for a Snoopy lover of any age and offer 16 different designs to choose from.
- Christmas 2011 will feature new cards that have fun, interactive, immediate play value for recipients. New capabilities include:
- Vertical Spin with Sound featuring a character who spins to the music when opened.
- Fiber Optics with Sound has a new light feature.
- Alternative Activation and Sound with Motion, these cards move and play music when the recipient does something to activate it such as pulling s string to make the bell ring and move.
- Push Button Motion with Sound activates at the push of a button and has three witty sayings.
- Christmas card-sending is a snap on Hallmark.com. Consumers simply customize their cards with photo and words, upload their address books, and Hallmark will address, stamp and mail the cards for them. The service is free; consumers only pay for the postage.
Hallmark has a Christmas card to suit practically every need:
- Prices begin at just 99 cents.
- 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 hot properties.
- More than 250 boxed-card designs cover a range of styles including traditional, faith-based, elegant and fun.
- Eight 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®, Winnie the Pooh, Frosty the Snowman™, and Happy Feet, Prep & Landing, are featured in the individual card line. Boxed cards also feature Thomas Kinkade designs, as well as the Peanuts® gang.
- 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 200 niche cards this season.
- individual and boxed cards are produced either on paper with 20% recycled fiber content or on paper sourced from well-managed forests.
Hallmark meets the needs of ethnic consumers:
- Mahogany offers more than 100 individual Christmas cards. The line includes traditional, religious, and humorous designs, Cards With Sound including three new gospel song cards, and money holders that are gift-card compatible. Mahogany also offers 15 boxed card designs.
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Hallmark Sinceramente offers more than 290 individual Christmas cards. The cards include Spanish editorial with English translations on back, bilingual messages, money/gift-card holders and cards that feature sound – Spanish songs and instrumental songs – or the ability to record your own message.
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.com also offers a selection of personalized Christmas cards and e-cards:
- The Personalized card selection on Hallmark.com also offers a selection of over 950 unique Christmas greeting cards, invitations, announcements, and personalized stationery that can be customized with personal photos and messages, as well as more than 100 Christmas e-cards.
- Hallmark.com offers a selection of over 100 personalized foil designs, which enable senders to customize designs by adding their own name and/or photos – and have them printed in foil. Also new in 2011, Hallmark.com debuts 20 Christmas photo cards, greeting cards, and invitations on premium-quality paper stock. Over 15 premium-quality personalized stationery cards are also available online.
- Personalized paper cards have several new and unique options:
- Consumers can shop for their Holiday cards by their preferred Design Style – Modern, Fun, Vintage or Classic.
- A selection of cards will offer consumers the ability to select up to four different color options for the same design.
- Photo newsletters allow families to tell the stories of their year in photos.
- Hallmark.com is partnering with UNICEF to offer 25 card and photo card designs in 2010. Hallmark pays a portion of the net wholesale sales of the cards to the U.S. Fund for UNICEF.
- Consumers may upload an address book, and Hallmark.com will address, stamp and mail cards for them. Hallmark.com’s addressing and mailing service is free; the sender only pays the cost of the postage or shipping. New this year, is the ability to import photos from Facebook, photobucket, and picknik accounts.
- Many Christmas e-cards offer premium features. New e-cards this year include scenes from Classic Winnie the Pooh, “A Christmas Story” and “Frosty the Snowman™,” as well as favorite Hallmark characters such as hoops&yoyo™ and Maxine. One new e-card features the popular song “Santa Baby” by Eartha Kitt.
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.”
In Stores
Available at Hallmark Gold Crown® stores nationwide. Use the store locator on Hallmark.com to find the nearest Hallmark Gold Crown store.