Thread by @TheEconomist

📮 As well as laughs—intentional and otherwise—Christmas newsletters provide a rich social history. A festive thread (1/10) economist.com/christmas-spec…

The oldest archived example of a Christmas newsletter was penned by Marie Harris in 1948, detailing her family’s move to a rambling old farmhouse in Oregon (2/10)

After the second world war, Christmas newsletters emerged as a medium on both sides of the Atlantic (3/10)

By the 1970s, people were buying Christmas cards by the box. When technology allowed inserts to be copied, people jumped on the opportunity (4/10)

As Christmas letters became more common in the 1980s, people found ways to make them stand out with photos, clip-art and original poems (5/10)

In the 1990s paper sources began to disappear beneath a flood of emails and text messages. But Christmas newsletters remained an exception to the rule (6/10)

Like modern social media, Christmas letters offer a window into everyday domestic life—or at least the version of it that the author wanted to present (7/10)

Estimates suggest that women write about three-quarters of Christmas newsletters, providing an alternative historical perspective—albeit one that remains largely white and middle-class (8/10)

But complaints of humblebragging and the growth of social media have left Christmas newsletters in decline. The average American household received ten Christmas cards in 2019, compared with about 30 at the end of the 1980s (9/10) economist.com/christmas-spec…

This year, lockdowns may inspire further reflection, prompting people to put pen to paper and craft a Christmas newsletter of their own.

Did you send a Christmas card this year? (10/10)