In England, in the early 1800s, people had two good reasons not to feel guilty about failing to send Christmas cards: First, the Christmas card hadn't been invented; second, the era's rudimentary postal system couldn't handle a Yuletide flood. But in 1843 postal reformer Sir Henry Cole hit on the idea of Christmas cards as a way to promote improved mail service. Cole not only commissioned artist John Callcott Horsley to design cards, but actually mailed them—events that the world has come to regard with equal awe.
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