People in Luxembourg Advised to Send Christmas Cards Early

With the Christmas holidays fast approaching, people in Luxembourg wishing to send greetings cards to friends and family abroad may wish to do so sooner rather than later.

Christmas cards have always played an important role at this time of year and despite a decline in recent years, they remain a very popular method of sending greetings to friends and loved ones.

For context, the first Christmas card is attributed to Henry Cole, founding director of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. In 1843, Mr Cole was too busy to send personal letters at Christmas time, and therefore hired artist John Calcott Horsley to design a card that could be sent to friends and family. That first Christmas card shows three generations of Mr Cole’s family toasting the season.

Christmas cards did not, however, become popular until the late 1800s, and the exchange and sending of cards continued to grow until relatively recently. An increasing number of Christmas greetings are now sent electronically for reasons including convenience, cost and environmental factors.

Among those who still appreciate the written, personal card are the "Kleeschen" (Saint Nicholas), a cherished figure in Luxembourg, and the similar, more internationally known figure of Santa Claus. Luxembourg’s traditional Kleeschen and Santa Claus Secretariat opened earlier this month, and letters can be dropped off, postage-free, in all POST yellow letter boxes throughout the country. In addition, POST Luxembourg has installed dedicated "Kleeschen" letter boxes in nine POST Spaces, where a printed greeting letter template is also available. The postal address to send letters to Kleeschen or Santa Claus is: Kleeschen / Santa Claus, 1 Spillstrooss, L-3290 Am Himmelsland.

For those who still prefer to send Christmas cards via post, it seems the earlier the better. Chronicle.lu reached out to POST Luxembourg to find out the latest dates for posting nationally and internationally.

The answer received did not specify specific postal dates but gave the advice that "delivery time for international letters and packages varies based on the destination country, connections and local postal services".  POST Luxembourg added that it "recommends posting outgoing international mail as early as possible". It recalled that it offers standard delivery as well as international express delivery via DHL.

"For deliveries in Luxembourg, which are managed by POST Luxembourg, parcels arriving at the distribution centre by Monday 23 December 2024 will still be delivered on Tuesday in time for Christmas, provided that the recipient is at home," POST Luxembourg assured.