Christmas Cards - Year 8

Our cards - above 2022 & 2021. Below 2020, 2015 and 2018.

As we got fewer cards than usual this year and also because I have become rather critical of the ones we do get, I thought it was about time to add the ones that we send out to my annual Christmas card survey. These five are the ones I could find copies of, as you can see we are trying to do something about the scarcity of stained glass and nativity scenes that I’ve noticed over the years.

You may also notice than none of them is square. Like last year, over 50% of the cards we got were square while only 15% were landscape format. 46% had an animal or bird as part of the imagery, 10% had a religious scene and 10% had presents or Father Christmas. 37% were homemade (or designed by the person who sent it) which is a pretty steady statistic. The unwelcome trend that I noticed last year, i.e. writing on the front of the card, is the same as last year at 30%.

Here are four of the best from this year. Above left, the best shop bought one (from the V&A) and above right, the best photograph. Below are my two personal favourites mainly because they are both really well made which is hard to keep up when you’re making lots of cards. Most of the ones in the homemade category are, like ours, printed on a home printer.

Finally, a special mention for the Chrismas hares!

Still no stained glass christmas cards

Last year’s christmas cards have gone in the bin, and my analysis done for the fifth year running. My best statistic is on the shape of the card - see graph below which shows the rise and fall of the three main shapes: square (usually the most popular), portrait (downward trend) and landscape (tussling for position with portrait over the past three years).

Homemade cards have almost drawn level with shop bought ones (49% to 51%), but here a new complication has emerged. People buy “homemade” cards in shops these days, so the category should really be “cards made by the people who sent them”, which is sometimes just a guess. Similarly, my subject categories have become blurred, with “winter scenes” accounting for 37% of the cards, animals and birds 20% and bible scenes only 10.5%. Still no stained glass cards!

Some of the best: top section genuine homemade, middle section ever popular birds, bottom section, three of the best.

This year I chose as my favourite card the christmas tree man shown below left and also in the homemade section above. Every previous year this cardmaker has sent an A4 sheet covered with interesting bits of printing which is difficult to display, so it was great to get it folded into a card - maybe we should have been doing this all along. We received two of the same card, a gaudy robin from Oxfam - this year’s most popular charity, with charity cards at a steady 26%. For comparison, last year’s statistics can be found here and the year before here.

Favourite cards: the winner, category straddler donkeys in the snow, and homemade card sent by somebody else

Analysis of the Christmas Cards

Three of the best

The cards are my favourite of the Christmas rituals: making them, then actually getting some post for a change, displaying them and, best of all, analysing the Christmas card collection. This year there has been no clear winner in the best card category and - in a shocking development - no stained glass cards.

The statistics are as follows : 17.5% home made, 17.5% home printed, 65% bought.  Format: 38.5% square, 37% portrait, 14% landscape, 6% postcard.

Some cards from the most popular subject categories are shown here. We had 11 cards with reproductions of well known artworks (2 examples at the top): 7 of a single tree (the best ones above): 5 of birds (the best ones below).

As a series, I particularly like the street scene category shown below. Perhaps the card at bottom left is the real winner as it straddles the well known artwork (Ravilious), tree and street scene categories.