This is the first year we’ll be sending a photo card for the holidays. I’ve never liked the postcard-ish ones that you can generate at ofoto and elsewhere. It doesn’t seem like a Christmas card unless you can open it and find a note scribbled in the hand of a friend. So, we are doing photo insert cards. Good ones that don’t cost a mint are not as easy to come by as you might think.

Why am I telling you all of this? Well, in my search for the perfect card, I ran across more Boston history. Did you know that the father of the Christmas card in America was Boston’s Louis Prang? From Greg Livaudais’ swell site:

“It was in 1875 that Louis Prang introduced the first commercial printing of Christmas cards in the United States. As a young man, Prang, a German lithographer, came to New York and migrated to Boston in 1850….He felt that Americans, known for their free spirit and roughness, longed for some sensitivity and beauty in their lives. He sensed a need and would strive to fill it. So he printed highly colored and beautifully designed cards that immediately became popular with Americans.”