WHEN popular English artist John Calcott Horsley designed the first Christmas card for his friend Sir Henry Cole in 1843 little could he have known that he had started a trend that would become an integral part of Christmas.
That first year only 1,000 cards, decorated with a simple picture of a family enjoying a Christmas party, were on sale in London.
It did not take long before businessmen saw the potential of sending goodwill messages during the festive season, although their motives usually had more to do with raising company profiles than the urge to pass on Yuletide sentiments.
It was not until the 1950s that various charity groups latched on to the huge fund-raising potential and started selling Christmas cards in volume.
One of the first was UNICEF (United Nations Children's Fund) which sells more cards than any other charity organisation in Hong Kong.
Doris Ng, information officer for UNICEF Hong Kong, said: 'Our Christmas card operation plays an important part in our fund-raising activities.
'It helps to increase public recognition; it provides an opportunity for volunteers and the general public to get personally involved with UNICEF; and, of course, it provides additional resources. In 1994, we sold 850,000 cards which raised $5 million.' Over the years, many artists from all over the world have contributed their work to appear on UNICEF cards - some famous, some not so famous but none more important than seven-year-old Jitka Samkiova.
