Old Christmas Cards Postmuseum has over 10,000 different
Christmas cards in its large collections, many from their heyday
around the turn of the last century. We have selected 78
Christmas cards by unknown artists. They are good examples of
beautiful and popular Christmas cards sent in large quantities
at that time. The first Christmas card was sent in England in
the 1840s. 1,000 cards were printed and these were coloured in
by hand. It was both a Christmas and a New Year card. At that
time, printing techniques had not developed enough to make it
possible to mass produce beautiful cards in colour. In Sweden,
the first Christmas cards were sent in the 1880s. Both the
inspiration and the cards came to Sweden from Denmark and
Germany. Other greetings such as “A Peaceful Christmas”, “A
Joyful Christmas” and “Happy Christmas” competed with the now
established greeting “Merry Christmas”. To begin with, everybody
handed out their own Christmas cards, but soon the Post Office
took over the distribution. Writing Chris