Valentines cards, anniversary cards, confirmation day cards, get well soon cards. In the UK there seems to be a folded piece of decorated card available to send to a recipient and recognise any and every occasion. The public invests in to whatever the greeting card industry invents and presents to them. Over the past two years of living in Germany I’ve found that buying a card for a specific celebratory occasions proves a bit trickier than back home in England. It’s got to the point of when I return to the UK I stockpile the cards I need for the upcoming months.

A selection of British and German greeting cards PHOTO: Sarah E

My partner finds it amusing that I insist on buying a card that specifically refers to the person receiving it, for example ‘Happy 60th Birthday Dad’ or ‘Happy 1st Anniversary Sister and Brother-in-law’. This is a tradition I have followed since I was old enough to have enough pocket money to buy a person a personalised card. Obviously, here in Germany I don’t expect the cards to have the text in English but I struggle to find at least ‘Herzlichen Glückwunsch zum Geburtstag, Vater‘. Is this just me? Maybe it’s living in Bremen with a smaller selection of shops.

In the UK the high streets are littered with stationery shops like Paperchase and WHSmiths or dedicated greeting card shops like Clintons Cards or Hallmark. Here in Germany, this isn’t the case. Small independent shops that aren’t dedicated to only selling cards seem to the preferred place to buy your card, or indeed a postcard. Here it seems that a single piece of card is a popular way to send your good wishes.

It was before an upcoming 30th birthday of a friend that I became frustrated  that I couldn’t find a card that specified her big 3-0 was impending. In the UK, a persons 18th, 21st and 30th birthdays are seen as landmark birthdays and should involve a significant amount of celebrating. I’m not exactly sure why someone’s 30th is such a big deal, I can only think that once a person hits this age they are meant to buy a house, get married, have children etc, so it’s seen as the gateway to settling down and should be highlighted. When it came to my 30th, I didn’t question why, I just made sure I celebrated in style.

I digress from the card hunt,  I looked everywhere to find a suitable-by-my-standards card with no avail. On speaking to a native German friend, I discovered that reaching your 30th year is not a special occasion here and isn’t generally celebrated. Instead 16th, 18th and 25th birthdays are more important birthdays to celebrate in a young German persons life. Why is this? Again I have no clue, my friend cannot explain why and Google doesn’t provide us with an answer. I guess it’s just a reminder of how other countries do things differently, we don’t all have to conform to the same traditions. Ruth explains more about the different ways birthdays are celebrated  in Germany.

Even if I’m willing to compromise on the wording displayed on the front,  I still want them to be of a high quality. Yet I have found the designs in the shops here are dated and the material used tends to be low quality.  It amuses me that when I do find a design that passes the quality assurance test, I turn it over and find it’s been created by a British artist. For a good quality card, it’s not uncommon to pay more than €4 or more, which I feel is rather expensive. I discovered that in 2013 the German greetings card industry had an estimated turnover of €700 million, this has probably increased since. It is not surprising when each card is priced so highly.

Trying to understand more about the history of greetings cards, I found that it was a German immigrant who started the greetings card industry as we know it. In 1856 Louis Prang opened a small lithographic business near Boston in America. By 1866, he had perfected the colour lithographic process. As his business prospered, he opened a factory in Massachusetts. Around twenty years after he first opened his business in Boston, he was publishing deluxe Christmas cards that were mainly being sold in England. A few years later he introduced his first complete line of Christmas cards in America and from there it grew and he became known as the father of the American Christmas card. To this day, Prang is still recognised with an annual awards ceremony conveniently named the ‘LOUIE Awards’. Equivalent to the Oscars for the greeting card industry, awards range from ‘birthday general’ to ‘wedding deluxe’ to card of the year.

After two years of living in Bremen, shopping around for decent quality cards and being greatly frustrated, I’ve come to the conclusion, what does it matter. Surely it is the thought that counts. At the end of the day, I have remembered the occasion and marked it by sending a card even if it’s not specific to the individual. Not long after receiving, the card will probably end up in the Papierkorb (recycling bin) and long forgotten.

Thank you, Germany, for cracking my habit. Maybe going forward, I’ll spend the time crafting my own creations rather than pacing the aisles and paying over the odds for a card . Who knows, I could become the next Louis Prang.

-Sarah E