Corporate Christmas cards can strike a lot of notes, blending into one harmonious and memorable song. If you’re part of a small company, perhaps even a one-person enterprise, you are probably doing the jobs of several people, “wearing different hats,” as it were. With all your personal multi-tasking, you probably appreciate investing in tools that also multi-task to get more bang for your buck. If you plan right, you can realize “perfect pitch” by sending a Christmas card to each of your business contacts.

Your Christmas card can serve as a personal calling card, as a thank you note, and as an advertisement. Company Christmas cards replace the visits and phone calls you don’t have enough time for during the holiday season. A Christmas card can serve as a letter of introduction, a reminder and a recommendation. In short, business Christmas cards play a symphony that “sings your praises.”

First, compose your mailing list to include: all your current customers and vendors; all the prospective customers you’d like to acquire; all the vendors you may one day want to do business with; every employee and service person who helps your business; anyone who may recommend your business, including neighboring businesses; every person who helps in your personal life so that you can better concentrate on business. These are the many parts that harmonize to create a robust business support group.

Next, select a Christmas card that, in both design and greeting, projects your company ethic at its best. Whatever your style, the quality of the Christmas card should be the best you can find. For generations, the social status of individuals and the reliability of businesses have been judged by the quality of the stationery products they used. For maximum benefit, have your Christmas cards professionally printed with your company name and/or logo. If you can budget your time, nothing beats adding a personal handwritten touch to your business Christmas cards.

The goodwill these cheerful Christmas cards facilitate for your business will be music to your ears!

When choosing the perfect business Christmas cards, it is often difficult to combine traditional taste in a design with a touch of modern flare. Design #153CW, Horse and Sleigh Die-Cut Season’s Greetings Card, does exactly that. The imagery is reminiscent of Christmas’ past including an antique sleigh being pulled through newly fallen snow by a white stallion. The sleigh is flanked with presents signifying the celebration of the Christmas season. The traditional design is accented with gold foil throughout, complimenting but not distracting from the picturesque setting.

Design #153CW - Horse and Sleigh
Die-Cut Season's Greetings Card

Design #153CW will certainly please your clients and remind them of the beauty of the holiday season. This die-cut holiday greeting card allows you to modernize the design’s classic appeal by having your personalization show through the die-cut window, making the design selection unique to you. Clients and business associates will proudly display this card making your name or business visible to all well into the holiday season.

If your style is defined by simplistic elegance, Design #122CX, Golden Holly Greeting Holiday Card, is a selection that will be reflective of your personal taste. This design, appropriate for use as personal and business Christmas cards, is subtly bold with a deep burgundy background color. The simple “Happy Holidays” message is framed in gold foil with holly encircling the border. Elegant and striking, this card could be used for either a holiday or Thanksgiving card selection. With an extensive list of greetings available to enhance the universal exterior message, this selection is a perfect selection for someone who is purchasing cards with a variety of recipients on their mailing list.

Design #122CX - Golden Holly Greetings
Holiday Card

It was Christmas Eve and I was driving home from a business trip. As I was driving along a dimly lit highway, I saw a billboard for an electronic store. It read “Make this Christmas Special.” After seeing that, my mind started to wander. The same question kept popping in my head – “What makes Christmas so special to me?”

Is it the various different lights and decorations that people put up to jazz up their homes?
While these are nice, I was never one for decorations.

Is it receiving corporate Christmas cards at work? These Christmas cards always seemed to lift my spirits, but I don’t think they are the reason either.

Is it the warm apple pie or drinking eggnog? I don’t think this was it, as I don’t like the taste of either of these holiday classics.

Is it the holiday music on the radio? While I do like Christmas music, there is only so much a person can take.

Is it the chill in the air or snow on the ground? I’ve always been a warm weather person, so I don’t think cold weather gives my holiday spirit much of a boost.

Perhaps it is the thrill of shopping for gifts and surprising my loved ones? While I love to surprise people, sometimes the stress of shopping far outweighs the reaction you get.

As my mind continued to wander, I slowly pulled into my driveway. I was gathering my bags when I noticed my wife peeking out the front window (she always gets nervous and anxious when I travel). I stopped in my tracks and recalled the question I was pondering just a few minutes ago in the car. I recognized that it wasn’t the food, the business Christmas cards, or even the gifts that made Christmas so special. It’s spending time with the people you love.

“The truth will set you free.” So what, you ask, has this to do with business Christmas cards? The truth is, we are all so up to our eyeballs and eardrums in advertising everywhere we turn that we tend to simply tune it out and discount the lofty claims. Some ads do catch our attention – because they are so annoying and so often repeated! Personally, I do give these ads special attention, so I can be sure to avoid these products and businesses whenever possible. I don’t want to reward them for annoying me and don’t want to encourage them to give me more of the same.

I often used to listen to the radio. Now I carry my own commercial-free music with me, room-to-room, house to car to office. I do this so I won’t be harassed with advertising! I rarely watch television anymore, direct from the station…too many commercials. Have you tried changing the channel during the commercial? You get more commercials, maybe even the same one on every channel. I now record shows, just so I can skip commercials. All of this, akin to computer spam, is avoided and filtered out.

So, for goodness’ sake, how do I reach out to my customers?! The truth? The old-fashion way. The nice way. The friendly, neighborly way. Once a year, I send beautiful, top-of-the-line business Christmas cards to everyone I know. Once a year, I also send beautiful top-of-the-line business Thanksgiving cards to my actual customers. During the year, I stay in touch using cards that say Happy Birthday, thinking of you cards, and when warranted get well or congratulations cards. Any reason, however random, will do, to keep myself and my business name in front of clients in a positive and cordial way. I think this habit also reflects our company ethic: to deliver the meat and not just the sizzle. I know it pays off in client loyalty and perhaps as a side effect of those neighborly greeting cards, in the mutually friendly and pleasant way we interact while conducting business.

When looking for business Christmas cards to send to your employees and vendors, check out design #843CS, Sparkling Snowflakes Seasons Greetings Card. This design is done on a dark blue, matte stock. It has uniquely beautiful snowflakes done in embossed silver foil, with a deeper blue accent as the back drop. These are backed with swirls, done in the same deeper blue. The swirls are softly connecting the snowflakes and give the appearance that the snowflakes are floating on air. Below the snowflakes, “Season’s Greetings” is elegantly done in silver foil.

Your customers will surely be impressed when they open their holiday cards to see the deep blue matte and the greeting that you have chosen along with your company name imprinted in silver foil. You may also choose to further personalize your holiday cards with a silver gel pen. These are available in packs of two and allow you to add a handwritten note or signature.

Design #843CS - Sparkling Snowflakes
Seasons Greetings Card

If you like snowflakes, then also check out design #587CS, Shimmering Snowflakes Season Greeting Card. These snowflakes are done in silver and turquoise and appear to be falling from the sky. I especially like that the snowflakes are done in such a way that it gives them dimension. The “Season’s Greetings” sentiment is done in the same turquoise on the front. This card is white inside and can also be personalized in silver foil writing or you can choose one of our ink colors with choices of blue, black, red or green.

As with both of these snowflakes season’s greetings cards, whether you are reaching out to your customers or friends and family, either one will be sure to please. Knowing that you have taken the time to pick out and send a card is sure to bring smiles to your recipients’ faces.

Design #587CS - Shimmering Snowflakes
Season Greeting Card

Last year, I mailed my business Christmas cards on December 28. Procrastination has always been my downfall but I was wholeheartedly determined to not let that happen again this year! I purchased my business holiday cards in September (at a great discount, I might add). I opened the box, reviewed my order and was very pleased with myself and my pro-activeness. After looking at my holiday cards, I put them back in their box and decided it was a good idea to put them in a back corner in the storage room until I needed to use them.

Many months passed but I still felt confident that I would be ahead of the game this year. I prepared my holiday cards mailing list and updated everyone’s addresses in October. November rolled around, Thanksgiving seemed to happen entirely too early this year, and then all of a sudden it was December. When I finally decided to get started with addressing the envelopes, I couldn’t find the box. Eventually I noticed it in another corner of the storage room. I pulled several heavy boxes off the top and then noticed something else was awry – two of the box corners were completely chewed through. I carefully pulled back the covers of the box and immediately confirmed my suspicions – a mouse and several of its cohorts had decided to make a home out of my box of business holiday cards.

After a slight panic attack (and the donning of some sanitary white rubber gloves), I came to the realization that most of the cards were salvageable. I did have to place a last minute order of 25 more personalized holiday cards but received them in a matter of days so I was still able to get my holiday cards out on time. I am already looking forward to ordering my cards early again next year to save some last minute headache! Let’s just hope the mouse problem resolves itself by then.

In today’s unstable economy, it is important for corporations, big and small, to let both their customers and vendors know that they are fiscally strong and solvent. With the holiday season fast approaching, what better way to do so then by sending business Christmas cards? Even in normal market conditions, sending business Christmas cards is a classy and thoughtful way to express the greetings of the season. They also allows you to let your customers and vendors know how much you appreciate the relationship you have with them.

This year more than ever, sending corporate holiday cards will send all the right messages to customers and vendors alike. You want them to know that your corporation is successfully weathering these tough financial times. Sending business Christmas cards with a beautiful design on the finest card stock imprinted with high-quality ink is a perfect way to do so. Not to mention how surprisingly cost-effective and convenient it is! More importantly, it shows that despite the difficulties we are all facing, your company still realizes what and who is important. It may seem like a simple and subtle gesture, but it can also function as a powerful tool to reassure recipients that your company is financially sound and that you are looking forward to continuing your fruitful business relationships with them in the future.

As the corporate greeting cards Creative Director for The Gallery Collection, I ‘m privileged to have been involved with our business Christmas cards designs for the last 20 years and I have watched, in amazement, our growth in technology, creativity, and talent.

When our Creative Team gets together to review ideas and designs, they will groan when I start reminiscing about “back in the day” when my only design tools were a pair of scissors and some rubber cement and there was only one computer on the entire floor, reserved for management only…no artist-types allowed! Groaning aside, those old-fashioned ideals that I was fortunate enough to have been taught then – of making quality and imaginative corporate Christmas cards, with quality materials supported by top-notch customer service – were lessons well-learned and principles that have remained strong in this fast-paced, electronic world we live in now.

Today, the Creative Team works away on state-of-the-art Macs with the most up-to-date programs, utilizing all the newest technologies available. Although, in maintaining traditions, we still pull out the scissors and some glitter pens from time to time and still manage to go home with glue in our hair!

Christmas cards are sometimes more than meets the eye. Yes, I did just use a line from Transformers but not the movie…the only place real Transformers exist in my mind – the cartoon!

Take any of those business Christmas cards you received this holiday season for instance. They may look like just mere Christmas cards to you, but there are other things you can do with these works of art. How about converting them into your own masterpiece? Cut the front off of these beautiful designs; make a collage; and hang them on your wall. Maybe put them in your cubicle, and keep that holiday spirit all year long.

If you want to be really advanced, try and make a customized gift box out of them. These Christmas greeting cards can help make any gift look good. Take a plain gift box, spruce it up with a bunch of cut outs from Christmas cards from years past. Now look at that plain gift box…not so plain anymore, now is it?!?

I kept last year’s Christmas cards and strung them altogether, hung them off the top of the ceiling, and look at that…I had a festive banner. So don’t think all you have to do with your Christmas cards is open them, hang them on your mantle, and then throw them out. There’s infinite ways to use these little pieces of art. Just be creative and think outside the box.

When I got divorced from my ex-husband in 1989, it was a very stressful eight months of going back and forth between lawyers and negotiating over every possible detail involving the custody of our children. During the middle of all the negotiations, Christmas arrived with all the usual mail full of holiday cards. But this year, one particular card stood out amongst all the other business Christmas cards I had received. It was from my lawyer and it was the most beautiful and peaceful card I had ever seen. It was a slate blue winter scene with silver snowflakes and a silver full moon. It was the same color blue as my kitchen, so when Christmas was over, I threw all the others cards I received away except for the one from my lawyer. I put it in a Ziploc bag and said I would get a frame for it and hang it in my kitchen.

Several years passed and I got a job working for a company that sells Christmas cards. After my two week training period, I was on the phone selling cards and looking through the catalog, and there was the beautiful card that my lawyer had sent me. I was now working for that company! The card still sat in my kitchen drawer, unframed. Was it fate or irony? The beautiful card that cost me over $5,000 in lawyer’s fees was made by the company I now worked for. The card originally represented peace in the midst of a very stressful period. It now represented my new life at a wonderful greeting cards company!

Twelve years later the beautiful card still remains in the Ziploc baggie, the white paper just starting to turn yellow around the edges. I don’t want to frame it since my kitchen is no longer a slate blue; but I cannot throw it out either. I guess I will put it back in my kitchen drawer and perhaps when I need some peace in the future I will take it out and look at it again.