A Christmas card is a type of greeting card specifically given at Christmas. The first Christmas card was invented in 1843 by Sir Henry Cole (1808-1882), who had given a Christmas greeting to his friend the previous Christmas. The friend encouraged him to officially patent the idea. Cole asked the designer John Callcott Horsley (1817-1903) to design the first commercially available Christmas card.

The first Christmas card (pictured) featured a picture of a family raising a toast, flanked on either side by scenes representing charity, for example, food and clothing being given to the poor. Cole had 2,050 cards printed, which were sold in 1843 for a shilling each.

Today, Christmas cards tend to depict religious or wintery scenes, but the early cards often contained humorous or sentimental pictures of children, animals or flowers.

Sir Henry Cole was a British civil servant who oversaw many innovations in 19th century Britain. As well as introducing the first Christmas card, he played a key role in the introduction of the Penny Post, the world's first postage stamp.

In 2001, one of Cole's first Christmas cards, which he sent to his grandmother in 1843, was sold at auction for £22,500.

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