The face of a greeting card with "A Joyful Yuletide" in text at the bottom of the card and a wintry holiday scene with snow and holly leaves and deer and (possibly) a church building in the background.

12 Days of SPCO Holiday Greetings

by Sara Pezzoni
December 17 2020

The purpose of The Compass Rose is to raise awareness of Special Collections' resources and to foster the use of these resources. The blog series also reports significant new programs, initiatives, and acquisitions of Special Collections.

This week, UTA Special Collections kicked off a new series on social media titled “12 Days of Holiday Greetings,” which is designed to highlight the diversity of our collection materials in regard to holiday correspondence! You can follow along on our Facebook page (facebook.com/Special-Collections-UTA-Library-159593908826) or on our Twitter page (twitter.com/spcouta).

Front and interior of a holiday greeting card by Beeman Fisher. The front of the card features a small rabbit looking at a sign that reads "City Limits, The Friendly City, Fort Worth, Where the West Begins" and the text "Greetings" is seen at the bottom of the card. The interior of the card shows an illustration of Beeman Fisher, seated at a desk with his feet propped up on the desk, with a newspaper covering his face. Interior greeting reads "Wishing you a Merry Christmas and fewer troubles next year."

A Christmas greeting card created by Beeman Fisher of Texas Electric Service Co. (TESCO), 12/25/1938. Source: Beeman Fisher Papers.

Front of a colorful greeting card depicting the Mexican "Tree of Life."

Holiday greeting card from the Federation Bilingual Training Resource Center in Denton, Texas, depicting the Mexican "Tree of Life." Source: Chris Miller Papers.

The front of a Christmas greeting card with the text "ESRO-ESTEC" written at the top of the card and "Christmas 1974" written at the bottom of the card. The snowy scene depicts satellites and other spacecraft depicted in the sky with a Christmas tree covered in snow in the foreground.

Christmas greeting card from ESRO-ESTEC, Christmas 1974. Source: Dale Milford Papers.

The front of a greeting card, a color photograph of female Prairie View A&M University students in front of the newly constructed Drew Hall, a residence hall for women, which opened in September 1972. The photograph appears to have been taken circa 1972-1974.

Greeting card: "Season's Greetings from Prairie View A&M University," undated [ca. 1972-1974]. Source: Dale Milford Papers.

Holiday greeting card with a hand drawn scene of two unicorns seated in chairs at a table playing chess, the text at the top reading "Season's Greetings."

Holiday greeting card featuring an illustration of two unicorns playing chess, sent on behalf of the Odyssey Institute in New York, NY, 01/13/1978. Source: Chris Miller Papers.

The custom of sending greeting cards dates back to the ancient Chinese, who exchanged messages of goodwill to celebrate the New Year, and to the early Egyptians, who conveyed their greetings on papyrus scrolls. By the early 1400s, handmade paper greeting cards were being exchanged in Europe. The Germans are known to have printed New Year’s greetings from woodcuts as early as 1400, and handmade paper Valentines were being exchanged throughout Europe in the early to mid-1400s.

The first known published Christmas card appeared in London in 1843, when Sir Henry Cole commissioned artist John Calcott Horsley to design a holiday card featuring his family celebrating together that he could send to his friends and acquaintances. The card included a triptych illustrating a family at table celebrating the holiday, flanked by images of people engaged in acts of charity, with a message along the bottom that read "A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to You."

The first Christmas card created featuring a color image of a family celebrating together, including a triptych illustrating a family at table celebrating the holiday, flanked by images of people engaged in acts of charity, with a message along the bottom that reads "A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to You."

The world's first commercially produced Christmas card, designed by John Callcott Horsley for Henry Cole in 1843. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

The Industrial Revolution led to advances in printing technology and mail service, which ultimately popularized the use of commercially produced greeting cards. Families were also beginning to spread out geographically and holiday cards served as a way of staying in touch with relatives. A growing importance of sentiment has also helped the tradition take root; from a psychological standpoint, greeting cards are widely understood to represent "a formal celebration of ideas of personal warmth and home feelings" and sending cards is not only a gesture of goodwill but also an act of expression for oneself (Brown, 2015).

In terms of greeting card messages, the phrases "Merry Christmas" and "Happy Holidays" both have religious origins and are derived from Old English. Christmas comes from “Cristes Maesse,” or the Mass of Christ, and the word “holiday,” comes from the medieval word “haliday” which is derived from Old English “haligdæg,” meaning “holy day.” However, the phrase “Happy Holidays” has become a more universal greeting over time, used to include people of various religions and a nod to the New Year (Pruitt, 2018). It’s clear that whatever your preferred message of greeting may be, wishing someone else well at this time of year (or any time, really) is never a bad idea.