Christmas cardn.adj.
/ˈkrɪsməs kɑːd/, U.S. /ˈkrɪsməs ˌkɑrd/ A. n.† 1. A card circulated at Christmas in order to raise money by subscription for charitable purposes. Obsolete.
ΚΠ
1832 Hull Advertiser 7 Dec. The total amount of benevolent income during the year, including..the contributions from auxiliaries, and the produce of Christmas cards, amount to 3374l. 6s 7d.
1839 Child's Compan. Mar. 74 A little girl who was engaged in collecting for the Religious Tract Society, by means of a Christmas Card.
1861 Lancaster Gaz. 19 Jan. 5/3 A christmas card of the Primitive Wesleyan Methodist Home Missionary Society, to which the name of Miss Hannah L. Anderson was affixed as collector.
2. A greetings card sent at Christmas, typically featuring traditional or stereotypical Christmas imagery, such as the Nativity scene, a Christmas tree, a snowy landscape, etc.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > emotion > aspects of emotion > sentimentality > [adjective]
sugary1591
maudlina1631
mawkish1702
sickly1766
emetic1770
mawky1773
pamby1820
sentimental1823
saccharine1841
sticky1841
mushy1848
sentimentalizing1856
Christmas card1860
maumish1866
slobbery1875
namby-pamby1883
sloppy1883
slushy1889
sentimentalistic1904
marshmallowy1907
hearts and flowers1911
slobby1913
soppy1918
meltyc1921
lavender1928
saccharescent1930
schmaltzya1934
sloshy1933
gooey1935
icky1938
cheesy1943
drippy1952
soupy1953
squishy1953
saccharined1962
gloopy1965
yechy1969
yucky1970
sucky1971
yuck1971
schmoozy1976
society > leisure > social event > festive occasion > specific festivities > [noun] > festivities associated with Christmas > articles associated with
hollyc1150
Christmas lights1597
mince pie1604
Christmas puddingc1650
Christmas present1663
Christmas gift1751
Christmas decoration1818
Christmas tree1826
tree1851
wesley-bob1859
Christmas card1860
bauble1862
Advent calendar1867
1860 Belfast News-let. 18 Dec. (advt.) Christmas Cards, New Designs, for enclosing in Letters, or sending with Presents at this Season, 1s. and 2s. per Dozen.
1883 J. Ruskin Fors Clavigera VIII. 219 There is a Christmas card, with a picture of English ‘nativity’ for you.
1910 Westm. Gaz. 3 Jan. 4/2 The New Year's card, that refuge of the laggard Christmas-card sender.
1967 Listener 13 Apr. 479/1 Money-raising efforts..like selling charity Christmas cards.
2013 Church Times 20 Dec. 30/4 I think people are finding the high cost of postage a real barrier to sending Christmas cards.
B. adj. (attributive).
Characteristic or reminiscent of a stereotypical Christmas card (often with connotations of triteness or sentimentality). Cf. chocolate box adj.
ΘΚΠ
society > leisure > the arts > visual arts > painting and drawing > painting > qualities or styles of painting > [adjective] > other qualities or styles
plangent1666
dry1695
sticky1753
flat1755
spotty1798
touchy1809
definitive1815
edgy1825
painty1827
scratchy1827
unideal1838
tinglish1855
generalist1858
tinny1877
Christmas-cardy1883
tinty1883
surfacy1887
chocolate box1892
chocolate-boxy1894
Christmas card1895
juicy1897
candy box1898
pastose1901
busy1909
pompier1914
posterish1914
painterly1932
X-ray1940
illusional1942
all-over1948
figurative1960
hard-edge1961
1895 G. B. Shaw in Sat. Rev. 28 Sept. 410/2 Christmas-card verse of the ‘rose by any other name’ order.
1962 J. B. Priestley Margin Released iii. iv. 183 A sort of Christmas-card past.
2004 Daily Tel. (Nexis) 24 Apr. 19 There is no reason why we viewers should have to tolerate Ken's banal Christmas-card sentiments at a time when we craved professional reportage.
Compounds
Christmas card list n. a list of people to whom one sends Christmas cards each year.Frequently figurative, in various expressions used to indicate whether people are on friendly terms, e.g. he's off my Christmas card list; you just went to the top of my Christmas card list, etc. (see quot. 2004).
ΚΠ
1894 Daily Tel. 25 Oct. 3/7 Many friends who..were in danger of being inadvertently omitted from the Christmas card list.
1934 Nottingham Evening Post 3 Jan. 3/4 The lady from Heanor who remembered us in her Christmas card list.
2004 Independent 5 Oct. 3/1 That's me off her fucking Christmas card list, but do I give a toss? No.
Derivatives
ˈChristmas-cardy adj. characteristic or reminiscent of a stereotypical Christmas card (often with connotations of triteness or sentimentality); = sense B.
ΚΠ
1883 Sat. Rev. 1 Dec. 711/1 Many of the cards..are spoilt by the flowers being treated neither conventionally, pictorially, nor botanically, but in a style which may..be described as Christmas Cardy.
1915 ‘An American’ Can Germany Win? vi. 75 This is no German, moonlit Christmas-cardy fairy tale.
2019 Sunday Tel. (Nexis) 17 Feb. 28 The honest, if slightly Christmas-cardy view of Swedish suburbia.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, March 2020; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
<
n.adj.1832