Christmas Cards were introduced in 1843 (the same year A CHRISTMAS CAROL was first published) by Sir Henry Cole, an English businessman and patron of art. The card was designed by John Calcott Horsley, and helped popularize the expression "Merry Christmas". Cole printed a thousand cards and sold them as a means to simplify the sending of Christmas greetings. Postage for the cards was one penny in the 1840s. Within a few years after the introduction of the halfpenny rate for mailing cards in the 1870s, the British Post Office was flooded with annual card mailings. Christmas cards in the United States were first produced for businesses to send to their customers as a form of advertising.
Christmas Island was named on December 25, 1643 by the British East India Company captain who arrived there on that Christmas. The island is a self-governing Territory of Australia located 1,466 miles northeast of Perth in the Indian Ocean. Postage stamps have been issued since 1958.
The first Christmas stamp was printed by the Canadian post office in 1898, but another national Christmas stamp wasn't produced until Austria issued two in 1937. The practice of regularly issuing Christmas stamps was begun in Australia and a few other countries in the 1950s. The United States began the practice in the 1960s, also issuing stamps commemorating Hanukkah, Eid and Kwanzaa.
The first Christmas Seal (which has no postage value) was issued in Denmark at the turn of the 20th century to raise money for tuberculosis. Christmas seals in the United States raise money for the American Lung Association.
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