December 9 - National Christmas Card Day

 

Happy National Christmas Card Day! Each year around this time, friends and families begin mailing their holiday cards. On December 9, today serves as a reminder to get your stamps, envelopes, and cards together so you can share your holiday cheer. 

Sending a card during the holidays hasn’t always been a tradition. In Victorian England, sending Penny Post was inexpensive and frequent. It was also considered rude to ignore a written message.  

One particularly popular Victorian invented the holiday card out of necessity.  British civil servant and inventor Sir Henry Cole received frequent letters, and it left him little time for other responsibilities. 

In 1843, he asked his friend, English academic painter of genre and historical scenes, illustrator, and designer J.C. Horsley to illustrate a design he had in mind.  

Soon, Cole was off to the printer, and he mailed the first Christmas card in the Penny Post to friends, family, and many acquaintances.  

Today, we mail a variety of cards at Christmastime. The tradition of Christmas cards continues in a broader sense.  

Social and electronic media keep us connected in this modern world more than ever before. However, the Christmas card continues to be a part of our annual tradition, even if it takes on a different style or pattern. 

• • Photo cards – Many families take an annual holiday photo specifically for mailing to friends and family. These photos may be snapshots or professional photos. Most families save them from social media, so they remain a surprise when they arrive in the mail, too. 

• • Christmas letter – These letters often highlight the events for each family member for the year. Not everyone has social media, so it’s a nice way to catch up with friends and family. The letters usually run a page in length, but some letter writers have a lot more to say. 

• • Postcards – These simple cards generally send the same holiday message a regular Christmas card does, but without a fold or an envelope. With a photo on one side and a simple message on the other, they are quick and easy to send, too. 

• • Business card – Christmas cards also come from businesses who want to remind us they still want our business. As a marketing tool, businesses know their best customers like to be remembered during the holidays, too. 

• New Year’s cards – The holidays do get busy, and some of us put off sending any holiday cards until New Year. They still want to keep in touch with family and friends, so they send their good wishes in the form of a Happy New Year card. So, don’t mark anyone off your Christmas card list until after the first of the year. 

These holiday cards may be the only communication we receive all year long from a friend or family member.  

 
Even if we spent an abundance of time with them once, these once-a-year notes touch us with a bit of meaning this time of year. We take the time to connect once again and say, “We’re thinking of you.” 

 
HOW TO OBSERVE 

 
Update your mailing list. Gather the stamps and pick out your favorite card. 

Will you be writing personal notes on each card? Or will you send a mass letter? Dress up the pets or family members for a last-minute photo as well.  

 
Get ready to be glitter bombed as the holiday cards begin pouring in your mail studded with Ho Ho Hos! and holiday greetings of all kinds.  

 
Share your favorite Christmas card style by using #ChristmasCardDay on social media. 

 
HISTORY 

 
While the origins of National Christmas Card Day continue to be researched, Sir Henry Cole does receive credit for creating the first Christmas card in 1843. However, the idea took several years to find its way to the United States.  

 
In 1850, American printer, lithographer, publisher, and Georgist Louis Prang immigrated from Prussia and opened a print shop in Boston, Massachusetts.  

 
He mastered many methods of lithography from around the world, and after encouragement from his wife, he began producing floral Christmas cards in 1875. He is sometimes known as the "father of the American Christmas card". 

 
#ChristmasCardDay 

@Hallmark 

@nichecinema 

December 9 - Marleen Gorris

 

Happy 72nd Birthday, Marleen Gorris! Born today in 1948, this Dutch writer and director is known as an outspoken feminist and supporter of gay and lesbian issues which is reflected in much of her work. 

 
Born in Roermond, Limburg, Netherlands, Gorris was a daughter to Protestant working-class parents in the very Catholic southern part of her country.  

 
Years later, Gorris studied drama at home and abroad. She studied Drama at the University of Amsterdam and has an M.A. in Drama from the University of Birmingham. 
 

Gorris began working as a filmmaker with almost no previous experience in the cinema. It was not until the age of thirty that she began writing scripts.  

 
Gorris later took her first effort to Chantal Akerman ('Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles', 'La Captive'), hoping to interest her in directing it. Akerman, however, told Gorris that she must make the film herself. 

 
Gorris later made an auspicious debut in the early 1980s with the film of which she is best known for writing and directing.  

 
This was with the 1982 Dutch drama film 'De stilte rond Christine M.' ('A Question of Silence'). The Dutch government gave her the funding to finance the project. 

 
The film tells of court psychiatrist Janine van den Bos (Cox Habbema), who ponders three Dutch women, Christine M. (Edda Barends), Annie (Nelly Frijda) and Andrea (Henriëtte Tol), all strangers, on trial for brutally killing a male shopkeeper. 

As he is being murdered, a group of women stand and silently but attentively watch. 

 
The court date arrives and Janine gives her professional opinion that the three women are in fact sane and that the court should take into consideration that the owner of the boutique was a male.  

Despite the prosecutors attempts to get her to change her opinion, she stands her ground.  

 
When the prosecutor suggests that the crime would have still happened if the owner were a woman, Christine, Andrea, Annie, Janine and the other women who witnessed the crime all laugh and exit the courtroom. 

 
'A Question of Silence' later caused considerable international controversy with its story about three unacquainted women who murder a randomly chosen man.  

 
However, the film was hailed by some as a logical case study of what happens when women are driven to the brink by a male-dominated society, while others decried it as a juvenile revenge fantasy. 

 

Two years later, Gorris garnered more attention with her follow-up. This was the 1984 Dutch drama/thriller film 'Gebroken Spiegels' ('Broken Mirrors').  

 
Afterwards, Gorris did not complete another feature until six years later. This was with the 1990 Dutch drama/sci-fi film with 'Die letzte Insel' ('The Last Island').  

 
During the 1990s, Gorris worked mostly in Dutch television. However, by mid-decade, she was finally able to complete filming a script she had written in 1988. 

This was with the 1995 Dutch/Belgian/British/French comedy-drama/drama film 'Antonia's Line' (originally titled 'Antonia'). 

 
The following year, 'Antonia's Line' won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. This occurred at the 68th Academy Awards in late march 1996.  

 
The film went on to receive other accolades internationally for Gorris, becoming her most well-received film. 

 
Gorris is hailed as a feminist filmmaker. She takes on subjects of violence and sexual violence not really addressed by other female filmmakers. 

 
A gifted Dutch director and screenwriter whose small output has made a considerable international splash, Gorris has managed to make substantial feminist statements in her work by finding relevant political issues and recognizable, everyday wisdoms in the extreme plot situations her films detail.  

 
Her filmmaking skills are undeniable, yet her visual style often seems deceptively straightforward; similarly, her means of storytelling are clear and sensible, and yet by the time her various narrative threads come together, profound ambiguities have arisen.  

 
The emotional gamut of her work, meanwhile, ranges from the tender and mellow to the gruesomely horrific to the hilariously ironic, yet her work remains remarkably accessible, and the palpable anger in much of her oeuvre may be provocative, but it is not off-putting.  

 
Indeed, Gorris' primary talent may be her considerable ability to juggle the complexities of the questions her films raise. 

 
One of the Netherlands's best-known filmmakers and an important, often provocative voice in world cinema, Gorris is renowned -- and, in some circles, reviled -- for making unapologetically feminist films that assert the rights of women as they question the patriarchy that often represses them. 

 
Gorris has been active from 1982–present. 

 
#borntodirect 

@WomenInFilm 

@iffrotterdam 

@tcmtv 

@RogerEbert 

@encyclopediacom 

@mubi 

@Britannica 

@Fandango 

@Wikidata 

@tubi