Last week, I posted my first batch of 2025 Christmas cards – analogue manifestations of goodwill to at least some men, whizzing their way through the postal system, onwards to places near and far: Jamaica to Scotland, Italy to Switzerland, Devon to Kent.
Despite our reliance on the digital world and the punishing cost of stamps, writing Christmas cards is one of my favourite festive traditions. I write around 30 in total, I post around 10, and then physically hand out the rest. That’s the good thing about Christmas, more socialising means, if you’re organised (not a trait I possess in relation to any other activity), then there’s no need to head to a postbox. I wish I was the type of person who makes their own Christmas cards, but I am not. I always buy from the same place, the homelessness charity Shelter, but I was also seduced by a small box from the V&A this year. I prefer a traditional picture; not necessarily religious, a sparkly London vista or a Victorian version of merrymaking.
It takes me a few nights to get them all written. I turn on Ella Fitzgerald’s Christmas album, light a candle and grab a pen I like – nothing scratchy. It has to feel different from filling in another form for my son’s nursery or any other piece of life admin, but honestly we so rarely write anything with a pen anymore just the act of it feels a tiny bit special. Then I pour myself a glass of wine, warm up a mince pie, and off I go. I’m afraid to say I write personalised messages; I think about what the recipient would want their Christmas to look like, and anything they might desire for the year ahead. If you like someone enough to write them a card, you probably have an idea. My missives are never long, informative or particularly deep, Shakespeare they are not, but I do give them thought.
The first Christmas card, made by John Callcott Horsley, 1843,
I know what you’re thinking; what a money-draining, environmentally-problematic, time-consuming waste during a period where most of us are running around like headless chickens. This is exactly the point – sending Christmas cards makes me pause and think about the people I care about. The word ‘mindfulness’ is overused so much now that I am loathe to refer to it, but it forces me to slow down and appreciate the good stuff. It’s a way of coaxing out Christmas magic in a very deliberate way. As adults, the festive season becomes a case of project management; of social obligations, frenzied gift-buying and elaborate tablescapes. The practice of Christmas card writing is just something that feels nice, a way of spreading cheer and love to different parts of the world. You might not have seen a recipient for the best part of a year, maybe even longer, but a handwritten message is a great connector – a small reminder that you’re thinking of them.
I inherited the tradition from my mum, who still spends hours writing Christmas cards using a dog-eared address book that has survived 30 years. “It’s about keeping in touch in a soft way, completely without pressure,” she says. “There’s not many times in the year when people will take the time to wish you and your family well. Even phoning people can feel like an intrusion sometimes. A Christmas card has no time imposition placed on the recipient, it’s just there to say, ‘I hope the year has been made kind to you and that the next one brings you peace and happiness.’ The effort of it is what makes it special.’”
Skating scene Christmas cards, £7.50 for a pack of eight, V&A
Christmas cards are sent for a million different reasons – out of love, affection, respect, nostalgia, sympathy and, sometimes hope. None of them are bad, if anything they represent the nicer parts of what makes us human. They’re also factors that have driven us to write festive missives since they first began in 1843, led by Henry Cole, a civil servant and founder of the V&A. Cole was a busy man, and hadn’t the time to respond to pen long responses to his unanswered mail, so asked a friend, artist John Callcott Horsley, to draw a picture of the family eating. With each card posted, he wrote a brief personal few words. While the look of Christmas cards might have shifted slightly (you’d be hard-pushed now to find an image of a baby drinking red wine as on the front of Cole’s design), the intention hasn’t – to remain connected to those we love and to spread cheer at a dark time of the year, where loneliness and sadness can be at their most biting.
Retro tartan Santa charity Christmas cards, £3.99 for a pack of 10, Shelter
For all our dependence on email and WhatsApp, Christmas card writing is yet to die out. It is antithetical to our current idea of communication; rather than sharing our every thought instantaneously, a hand-written note requires consideration – we have to think of the right words and sentiment. We are living in a time where words have never been banged out so prolifically – we send Whatapps and emails with such speed that we don’t always think about about the quality of them. Hand-writing a card is, as mum says, more effort – and Gen Z are leading the way. If anything, younger generations are more on board with it than they ever have been. In 2024, research commissioned by the greeting card company Hallmark found that 63 per cent of 18 to 35-year-olds planned to send more Christmas cards than 2023 and 20 per cent intended to send fewer cards. Stamps are expensive (£1.70 a pop), but given how far that letter will travel, how many miles and counties it might traverse, it’s not as galling as you might first think. I send less than I ever have, but I still enjoy standing outside a frosty postbox and thinking of them landing on the doormat in the homes of people I care about.
It is no longer the norm to have a home full of Christmas cards hanging from string, mine certainly isn’t. And yet, that doesn’t stop me sending them. The writing, the spirit-diminishing queues for stamps, the remembering to drop them off at the postbox, all of it matters. The person I am writing to matters.
Ella Alexander is Citizen Femme’s fashion features editor. She started her career at the Evening Standard, and has since held senior editorial roles at Vogue, The Independent and Harper’s Bazaar, where she remains a contributing editor. She also writes for The Telegraph, Sunday Times Style, Service95 and CNN. She is an author, having co-written Dame Zandra Rhodes’ memoir, Iconic: My Life In Fashion In 50 Objects, published by Transworld in July 2024. Her favourite travel destination is Catania, Sicily’s second city.
Lead picture: Annie Spratt for Unsplash
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