Figure 1.--Here we see an early family Christmas greeting cards. It is one of the earliest of these cards thatv we have found. It is the Doe family card for 1943 durigb World War II. The chikdren are all opuctured in their Scouting uniforms.

Americans wanted to photograph their Christmas experiebces from an early point. This was not feasible in the 19th century. Most photographs in the 19th century weee portraits taken in photograpic studios. And to capture family Christmases you need to take photigraohs at home whih means that dad needed to be able to take photographs at home on Christmas Day. We see a few of these images in the 1890s, but not very many. We see far more in the 1900s decade with the advent of the snapshot beginning with the Kodak Brownie (1900). Now indoor photogeaphers were much more complicated than outdoor photographs. And gradually more family friendly methods of taking indoor photographs were developed. So we have countless family Chrisstmas image photograohs. There was a problem with family Christmas snapshots. They could not be shared with families and friends until well after Christmas--at least before digital photography and the internet. Sending card greetungs was becoming popular by the turn of the 20th century. Often families with kids would slip in a family portrait in with the Christmas card. Then suddenly in the late-1940s we begin to see special Christmas greetings card with a family portrait. The problenm with this is it could not be a Christmas portrait. The photograph had to be taken and submitted to the card company well before Christmas. This became very popular during the 1950s-70s.

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Created: 1:06 AM 10/16/2023
Last updated: 1:06 AM 10/16/2023