National Send a Card to a Friend Day

There are a lot of holidays that leave you scratching your head. There’s National Awkward Moments Day, celebrated on February 18th, and National Talk Like Yoda Day on May 21st. And who could forget the perennial favorite National Sneak Zucchini Onto Your Neighbor’s Porch Day? We’re not sure why you’d celebrate this oddity on August 9th, but at least it’s readily apparent what you’re supposed to do.

National Send a Card to a Friend Day might seem a quaint anachronism in our fast-paced, digital world, right up there with National Name Yourself Day, but it’s actually a wonderful way to honor your loved ones and the perfect opportunity to let them know how you feel.

We’re big fans of this one at Simply Noted. We know how special it is to send a card to family and friends — after all, we’ve built our business around it! Think back to the last time you received a handwritten card in the mail. Was it for a birthday? A thank you?

There was a time when people sent handwritten cards and letters just to say “hello.” Now special occasions are the only times people bother. National Send a Card to a Friend Day on February 7th is a great opportunity to revive the old practice of sending a card just because you want to. And even though the day has passed, you can always grab a card, pour out your heart, and send some love in the mail.

SEND A CARD AND CELEBRATE THEIR HISTORY

Greetings cards have been around for a long time. The earliest known instances come from ancient China and Egypt. The Chinese created and distributed messages of goodwill to celebrate the New Year. Egyptians eschewed folded cards in favor of papyrus scrolls printed with well wishes.

By the 13th century, woodcut print cards began to circulate around Europe. These cards included the first passed around for Valentine’s Day. During the Renaissance, a period that saw an explosion of fine art, greeting cards became more elaborate and highly decorated. By the 15th century, Christmas cards entered into the mix, followed by New Years’ cards in the early 1700s.

Greeting Cards Come to the United States

Greetings cards made the leap across the pond in time for the birth of the nascent nation’s second oldest department, the U.S. Post Office Department (later the U.S. Postal Service.) In just a few short decades, greeting cards become wildly popular in the states and elsewhere.

People could send a card readily for two reasons. For one, formal postal services made the mail dependable and affordable. Second, and more importantly, commercially printed cards became available. Before that, greeting cards had to be printed by hand. They were expensive and slow to produce. Mechanization ushered in a new era of mass-produced cards.

Affordable, widely available greeting cards had a second effect. It released them from the confines of holidays. The expense no longer had to be saved for special occasions. People could send greeting cards whenever and for whatever reason they desired.

Greeting Cards Enter the Modern Era

It was 1910 when American greeting cards reached the point we’re familiar with today. That was when Joyce C. Hall, at just 18 years old, started Hallmark Cards, the oldest and best-known greeting card company in the U.S. These trailblazers were the first to brand cards, starting in 1928. In the early 1930s, they were the first to license popular characters, like those from the Disney corporation.

Hallmark singlehandedly created the modern greeting card industry, and by extension, National Send a Card to a Friend Day.

An early shot of the Hallmark Cards building

WHY HANDWRITTEN CARDS ARE SO IMPORTANT

Handwritten letters are a dying art, but greeting cards have stuck around. In a world of quick email and even faster text messages, the close, personal connection that a card makes is a welcome break. They show your recipient how much you care for them — you could have fired off an email, but instead, you took the time to handwrite a special message. Handwritten cards take time to create. They’re a tangible item handled by both the sender and receiver, bridging the distance between them.

So have fun with it! There are nearly infinite choices for commercial greeting cards available online, but you can also make your own. Crafting groups focused on handmade cards have become very popular in recent years. These cards are doubly special to your recipient. Not only did you fill the card with warm sentiments, but you crafted it by your own hand.

Sending Handwritten Cards Benefits You as Much as Your Recipient

It’s clear what the person you send a card to gets from the transaction. It turns out you have just as much to gain. Handwriting a card engages the mind as well as the body. It encourages hand-eye coordination, helps develop penmanship, and allows the sender a cathartic emotional release.

They can also help you live longer. A large study out of Australia found that people with wider social networks live longer — significantly longer. Interestingly, the benefit was only notable with people that developed large friend networks. Those that only included family didn’t enjoy a longevity benefit.

So start sending out cards. Tell your friends you love them. Make new ones and send a card to them, too. You may have missed National Send a Card to a Friend Day this year, but it will come around again next February 7th. In the meantime, why wait? Buy some cards in bulk and pull those you love close, from a distance.

Simply Noted allows you to send handwritten cards in any quantity. Our handwriting machines create breathtakingly accurate recreations of actual handwriting using real ballpoint pens. If you’re a business that wants to automate its handwritten communications, you can use our available integrations to tie your CMS and other marketing automation tools directly to our systems. You could send handwritten cards to customers as easily as an email, with far more impact. Give us a call to learn more!