Birthday Wishes

Wouldn’t it be nice if all your birthday wishes could come true? To me, a perfect birthday would go as follows:

• Waking up in the morning without the use of an alarm clock. What a drag it can be getting up to the same buzzing sound every morning.
• A nice hot breakfast in bed. Nothing starts the day off better than some bacon and eggs.
• A commute to work without any traffic!
• Business birthday cards filled with birthday wishes from my co-workers. While we’re at it, maybe the cards will include a big bonus.
• Dinner at a restaurant of my choice. That’s right…no cooking for the birthday boy.
• A nice big chocolate cake with about 10 less candles on top of it. I don’t want anyone to know my true age.

Finally, what’s a birthday without the gifts? Chances are that I will be getting the same old standard presents: New socks, a gift card and maybe even a book or two. It would be great if I could replace those gifts with the following:

• Two tickets to the next big baseball game.
• Birthday cards filled with thousand of dollars.
• A big screen television with a matching recliner chair.
• A surprise vacation to some place warm.

Okay, so maybe I’m not being realistic. But it sure would be nice if I could just get one of my birthday wishes.

Our Personalized Christmas Cards Trump All

Christmas may be over, but our holiday cards seem to be inadvertently popping up all over the media. And the ironic part is our employees are the ones who are making these discoveries, simply by turning on the television or by flipping through a gossip magazine. Our latest unplanned feature was detected by our very own CEO, who was scanning the pages of a recent issue of Page Six Magazine from the New York Post when he stumbled across an image of design 491CS, which looks like this:

491CS
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And for your viewing pleasure, here is the page that the image was found on:

What a Bunch of Cards - Page Six Magazine
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This popular Season’s Greeting card, purchased by Ivana Trump, is being featured with several other holiday greeting cards sent by notable New Yorkers including celebrity chef Todd English, newscaster Deborah Norville, and Dylan Lauren, owner of Dylan’s Candy Bar. Of all the cards on the page, I think ours is the nicest (do you sense a bit of partiality?).

This isn’t the first time that Ivana placed an order of personalized Christmas cards with us. She has purchased cards from us every year for the past few years. Here is one that she recently ordered, design 447CW, which she had personalized with an imprint:

447CW
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It’s only natural that the former wife of the Donald would purchase her cards from The Gallery Collection. Like Ivana, our cards are the embodiment of luxury and elegance. Our embossed designs with rich foil accents are a classic choice…and they’re certainly extravagant enough for a patrician of the Upper East Side of Manhattan.

And since we’re on the topic of the Trumps, in 1998 we received an order from Trump Plaza for 23,525 units of retired design 001CX (Embossed Golden Pines by Walter Brooks). The employee ordering the cards volunteered to our representative the following tale: In the process of selecting this card, the employee’s team had collected over one hundred sample cards from a large number of greeting card publishers. The team was then asked to narrow the collection down to the best seven cards for presentation to a selection committee, which would then select the final card. All seven of the cards chosen were published by The Gallery Collection. And so the moral of the story – our personalized Christmas cards trump all.

The Origin of Holiday Cards

How did the custom of sending Holiday Cards begin in the United States? Sir Henry Cole, the founder of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, had so many holiday greetings to send that handwriting them was impossible. He wanted his friends to be aware of the need to help the destitute on Christmas. So in 1843, Cole commissioned John Calcott Horsley to paint holiday greeting cards showing the feeding and clothing of the poor.

The first mainstream holiday card had a center panel showing a happy family embracing one another, sipping wine and enjoying the festivities. This card drew criticism because showing a child enjoying a sip of wine was considered to foster the moral corruption of children. Printed on the inside read “A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to You.”

Following the mainstreaming of holiday cards in London, Americans had to import greeting cards from Great Britain for the following 30 years. Then in 1875 Louis Prang, a German man who immigrated to the United States, opened a lithography shop with only $250 and published the first line of personalized Christmas cards for America. This first line of Holiday cards featured flowers and birds…an image not reminiscent of a Christmas scene. But by 1881, Prang was producing more than 5 million Christmas cards per year featuring snow scenes, fir trees, glowing fireplaces, and children playing with toys.