Have you started your Christmas cards yet?
I've been reading a diary kept by an elderly woman during this era and, in 1941, she sent no less than 70 Christmas cards to her circle of family and friends. 70 Christmas cards! Just the thought makes my hand cramp up. I don't think I've ever sent or received more than 20 in my heyday. The author of the diary ordered her cards on November 8 from a woman selling them as a fundraiser for her church. The cards arrived on November 24, but it wasn't until December 5 - two days before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor - that the author of the diary began "writing" her Christmas cards.
I'm feeling inspired to send my own Christmas cards again this season. It's been years since I sent more than just a few. Feeling the pricks of vintage spirit, I picked up a couple boxes last weekend. A darling sky blue card featuring a tiny red cardinal perched on a snow-covered tree branch - with just a touch of glitter in the snow and on the cardinal's wing. "happy holidays to you and yours" it reads on the front cover. "Wishing you all the best this holiday season!" on the inside. (I like printed greetings that are fairly ambiguous like that --- leaves me room to write things like "Merry Christmas" and "Happy New Year" without looking redundant.)
But wait! Are store-bought Christmas cards proper form? I'd better check in with Lily Haxworth Wallace and The New American Etiquette (1941):
The greeting card industry is growing very rapidly and the increasing use of these cards signifies that for the commemoration of holidays and holy days they are correct... the biggest card day in the entire yearly cycle is Christmas, the time when almost everybody remembers almost everybody else.
It is, as is stated above, correct to send cards which are purchased ready-made at the stationer. It is also proper to have cards especially engraved for those occasions when you are going to send out many. It is not necessary that you confine yourself to black and white. Colors appropriate to the season can be used in both the tint of the paper and in the ink used for engraving and writing.
Phew! Okay, I think I'm covered. If you're planning on purchasing engraved Christmas cards this season, here's some advice on the greeting:
A married couple's cards would always read, "Mr. and Mrs. John Carter Jones wish you a very Merry Christmas." They should never be engraved, "A very Merry Christmas from Mrs. and Mrs. John Carter Jones." If the name comes last, it is in the place of a signature in which such titles are never proper.
She adds:
It is quite incorrect to write messages other than the greeting itself on these cards.
Hey, now. That's music to my ears. I could whip these things off in no time. And yet --- no hand-written messages at all? I wonder when things shifted and omitting a hand-written message - even just a line or two - became a faux pas. At least, that's how my mom brought us up. If you're going to send anything at all, be sure it includes a personal note. She used to enclose school pictures of my sisters and me to most of the folks on her Christmas card list. Let's face it. I don't often correspond with any of my family and friends in writing - except on birthdays or other special occasions. If I'm going to take the time to do this right once a year, I may as well include a note. If I start tomorrow (Friday, December 4) and I aim to have them all in the mail by Saturday, December 19 --- 20 cards in 15 days, that's just one or two cards per day. I can do that!
Incidentally, Mrs. Cornelius Beeckman, an etiquette columnist for the St. Petersburg Times, roundly disagreed. In 1947, she wrote:
Naturally, it's completely correct and most charming and personal it is too, for you to take your pen in hand and sign your name on your Christmas cards . . . and for good measure add a high-hearted message or news-greeting to the printed message on the card. There's something so welcoming about the handwriting of a friend that our hearts leap up when we behold it, and it seems to enfold the message in a warm, friendly handclasp.
On to the signature... Mrs. Beeckman advised her readers in 1940 that the signature - whether engraved, printed, or hand-written - should appear in one of the following forms:
Mary and John Holiday
Mary and John
The John Holidays
Ms. Wallace agrees that the wife's name quite properly appears before the husband's. She's usually the one signing the cards after all:
In signing greeting cards purchased at the store either the husband's or wife's name may come first, the one who signs usually writing the other's name before her own. If they are signed with the titles "Mr. and Mrs." those words, of course, go in that order.
Any children in the home? According to Mrs. Beeckman, they may also be included in the signature:
However when children's names are included in the signature, the father's name always comes first: John and Mary and Baby, or John and Mary and Johnnie, or The Holidays - John, Mary, Johnnie, Polly, and Bob.
An anonymous women's page columnist for the [St. Petersburg, Florida] Evening Independent offered some advice in 1943 for couples separated by the war:
If you are sending out Christmas cards and your husband is not at home on furlough at the time, but you know that he would like to his wishes extended along with yours, you might add a simple note to the greeting saying "John's wishes are included with mine, and we hope to see you when next he is home on furlough."
