Steve Webb  0:01  
Hello, this is day 11 of the 2022 encore of the 2009 season of the Lifespring Why Christmas Show, hosted by James Cooper, creator of whychristmas.com. And me the OG Godcaster, Steve Webb. Welcome. I'm glad you're here. We're having a drawing on the Christmas Day edition of the show for an autographed copy of Bryan Duncan's A NehoSoul Christmas CD. If you'd like to be entered for the drawing, be sure to go to Lifespringmedia.com/day9 to see how. That's Lifespringmedia.com/day9, that's d-a-y numeral 9 with no spaces. Every day from now to Christmas day you'll hear an episode from the 2009 season. And if you're not yet subscribed, or following the show, you can do that it LifespringWhyChristmas.show. And if you're enjoying the show, would you be willing to give back some value? That would be very much appreciated. Just go to LifespringMedia.com/support. And if you have one of the new modern podcast apps, you can stream support as you listen, and you can even boost the show. Now if your podcast app doesn't show a boost button...take a look right now...if you don't see the boost button, that means you're using an old legacy app. You can find a new modern one for free over at newpodcastapps.com. If you have any questions, email me at Steve@Lifespringmedia.com. All right, let's get to the show.

James Cooper  1:24  
Hello, and welcome to day number 11 of the Lifespring Why Christmas Show. Today we're going to be taking a quick look at Christmas cards. I'm sure you might have had some arrive already. But why do we send them to each other? Well, it started back in 1843 with a British civil servant called Sir Henry Cole. He worked for the public post office and three years earlier had helped introduce a cheaper way of sending things through the post. He came up with the idea with an artist friend of his called John Hoesley. In 1843, the same year that Charles Dickens' book A Christmas Carol was published, they printed 1000 of the first Christmas cards and sold them for a shilling or five pence each. Cards didn't become popular in the States until in 1875 a printer called Louis Pring started mass producing them so normal people could afford them. By the early 1900s cards had become popular all over Europe, especially in Germany, as well as featuring the snowy scenes that we associate with Christmas cards today. Only cards also had some very unusual things on them, including dancing frogs, and little angels, and even some rather weird strange looking insects. So when you're opening your cards, give a thought back to Sir Henry Cole, the father of their Christmas card. If you'd like to know more about them, then head over to www.whychristmas.com

Transcribed by https://otter.ai